Cookie royalty Susan Spungen is inviting you into her court this Hanukkah season. Her new cookbook, Cookie Queen: 80+ Irresistible, Doable, Giftable Recipes, codifies what the veteran food stylist and recipe developer has been doing for decades: baking cookies for every occasion in every shape, size, flavor and texture.

“For a long time, cookies have figured into many of the main events in my life,” Spungen said. And with eight nights of Hanukkah beginning on December 4, the book offers inspiration for bringing cookies into the holiday’s traditions of gathering and giving.

Spungen was the founding food editor at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia and later styled food for films like Julie & Julia and Eat, Pray, Love. She became a cookie-making icon when her elaborate baking spreads for The New York Times established her as a tastemaker on the subject.

For a holiday best known for foods fried in oil, or the chocolate gelt that Spungen said was always on offer in her home growing up, cookies may not seem like an obvious Hanukkah choice. But the treats can be packed easily, given as gifts, shared with a crowd and often contain ingredients home bakers have in their pantries.

And while Hanukkah doesn’t have established cookie traditions like Christmas, Jewish food culture is stacked with iconic cookies—black-and-whites and rugelach, to name just two—with wide popularity among Jews and non-Jews.

Rebekah Lowin, a Connecticut-based content creator focused on Jewish holidays and life-cycle events, is the author of the new A Year of Jewish Joy: Inspired Recipes, Rituals, and Traditions for Beautiful Celebrations. She got her start as an editor at Martha Stewart Living magazine before building her own Jewish lifestyle platform on social media.

Lowin’s focus on joy is rooted in the example of her grandmother, Klara Meyers, whom she called Gooma. A survivor of Auschwitz who lost both parents in the Holocaust, Meyers later rebuilt her life in America as an operatic soprano and professor of classical voice.

“My Gooma’s joy defied the life she’d lived,” Lowin writes in her new book. “But there it was anyway.”

Lowin grew up marveling at her grandmother’s ability to foster happiness through music, food, family and beauty despite all she had endured—an outlook that helped shape Lowin’s own approach to Jewish celebration.

That philosophy also informs Lowin’s approach to Hanukkah and her conviction that Christmas does not have exclusive rights to cookies.

“I won’t let anyone tell me that Christmas owns cookies,” Lowin said. “Cookies are very Jewish.”

She points to familiar dessert platters at Jewish gatherings that are filled with rainbow cookies, almond cookies, jam-filled sandwiches and mandel bread. “If you go to any Jewish event from a shiva to a bris, that is the most perfect Jewish thing,” she said.

The two recipes from Cookie Queen featured here have an obvious connection to Hanukkah: Chocolate Olive Oil Cookies and Pistachio Olive Oil Shortbread. Both make use of the ingredient associated with the holiday’s miracle of oil.

For a cookie swap, Spungen recommends bringing something distinctive rather than defaulting to the most standard option.

“A lot of people want it to be a chocolate chip cookie, but I think we can do better,” she said. “Bring your best and try to stand out.”

Lowin takes a flexible approach to creating a Hanukkah cookie box. Baking everything from scratch is not required.

“I love curating stuff,” she said of selecting the perfect storebought items to arrange artfully as a gift. “When you don’t have the oomph to make it yourself, anyone can curate.”

Packaging can help establish the holiday context. Lowin said she once resisted the conventional blue-and-white Hanukkah palette but now appreciates it. “The truth is, it’s a very useful shorthand for Hanukkah,” she said. Even a flourish of blue baker’s twine or ribbon can be enough, she added.

In her book, Lowin includes a Hanukkah sweets swap built around homemade treats and boxes for guests to fill. She also proposes an “Eight-ies” party with cookies shaped like the number eight—use your favorite sugar cookie recipe, or the one in Spungen’s new book.

When hosting, Lowin recommends providing boxes, ribbon and tissue paper along with simple signage explaining how the evening works.

For Lowin and Spungen, the larger appeal of cookies is their ability to be shared. “It’s really about sharing and community,” Spungen said.

That became particularly clear while she was testing recipes for Cookie Queen. Spungen, who splits her time between New York City and East Hampton, N.Y., with her husband, Steve Kasher, produced far more cookies than the couple could eat. Many went to her local food pantry, where they were distributed to families in need.

Spungen says most cookies handle freezing surprisingly well. Dough can often be refrigerated or frozen in advance, and many baked cookies can also be frozen without a significant loss of quality. Shortbread and sugar cookies are particularly well suited to the freezer. She has even packed a decorative tin with assorted cookies, frozen the entire thing and thawed it later before giving it as a gift.

That practicality is part of what makes cookies ideal for a holiday spread across eight nights. They can be baked ahead or bought from a bakery, brought to a gathering, packed into a gift box or tin or saved for another night.

“Cookies,” Spungen said, “are the most shareable food there is.” 

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2/3 cup finely ground raw pistachios or pistachio flour
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 tablespoons, aka sanding sugar, for the top

Directions

1.  In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the oil, egg and granulated sugar. Beat on medium speed until smooth.
2.  In a medium bowl, whisk together the pistachios, flour and salt. Add to the oil mixture and beat on low speed until the flour is moistened. Turn up the speed to medium and beat until the flour is well incorporated.
3.  Press the dough into an approximately 14-by-4-inch rectangular tart pan with a removable bottom and sprinkle with the sparkling sugar. Chill until firm, at least 1 hour and as long as 2 days, before baking (wrap in plastic wrap if chilling for more than 1 hour).
4.  Preheat the oven to 325° with a rack in the center. Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper.
5.  Place the pan on the prepared baking sheet and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until the edges are turning golden.
6.  Transfer to a wire rack and cool slightly. After 10 to 15 minutes, remove from the pan and cut into 2 1/2-by-3/4-inch bars. Place on the rack and cool completely. Store in airtight containers at room temperature for up to 1 week or freeze for 2 to 3 months.

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 2/3 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 ounces semisweet chocolate chips or chopped semisweet chocolate
• Flaky salt, for topping

Directions

1.  Preheat the oven to 350° with racks in the upper and lower thirds. Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper.
2.  In a small bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Whisk until well combined. Set aside.
3.  In a medium bowl, combine the oil, brown sugar and granulated sugar and whisk until combined. Add the egg and vanilla and whisk until creamy.
4.  Add the flour mixture to the oil mixture and stir with a spatula until no streaks of flour remain.
5.  Add the chocolate and stir to incorporate. Use a 1-ounce/2-
tablespoon scoop to portion the dough into 40-gram balls. Arrange the cookies on the prepared baking sheets at least 2 inches apart.
6.  Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, switching the sheets from top to bottom and front to back halfway through the baking time, until puffed and cracked. When they come out, whack the sheets on the counter or stovetop. Let cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, then sprinkle with flaky salt. Transfer to wire racks to cool completely, or not! These are best eaten on the day they are made. If not, store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days, and re-warm them before serving.

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Adeena Sussman lives in Tel Aviv. Her new cookbook, Zariz: 100 Easy, Breezy, Tel Aviv-y Recipes, was published in April. She is also the author of the New York Times best-selling Shabbat: Recipes and Rituals from My Kitchen to Yours and Sababa: Fresh, Sunny Flavors from My Israeli Kitchen.