Hanukkah cookie recipes are a festive way to get into the festival of lights spirit. Over the course of the holiday add fig-filled Hanukkah cookies to your repertoire of sweet ways to celebrate.
Hanukkah Cookie Recipes—a Different Way to Celebrate
We love all the traditional foods associated with Hanukkah—latkes and the like. Sure, you can fry fig fritters for an easy dessert dusted with powdered sugar and we can’t imagine Hanukkah without sufganiyot fig-filled donuts. Baking round challah full of plump figs or berry and fig babka are our picks for bread baking during the holidays.
But, for the cookie decorators—the ones who like a good cut-out cookie adorned with icing and colored sparkling sugar, our fig-filled Hanukkah cookies are a fun baking project that presents beautifully at holiday gatherings or gifted in shiny cookie tins.
How to Decorate the Hanukkah Cookies + Pro Tips
It’s important that right after making the cookie dough—but before rolling, cutting, and baking it—chill the dough for 1 hour. This resting time will help you get precise shapes from your cookie cutters.
Then, make sure to dip your cookie cutters in flour—each time—before pressing into the rolled dough to get clean lines from your cutters.
You’ll make the fig filling in a food processor—it’s just as easy as processing the ingredients until smooth. Then, once the cookies are cooled, decorate the top cookies, alloting time for them to harden and set before spreading the fig filling and closing the cookie sandwiches with the decorated cookies.
For decorating the cookies, use a trusty royal icing—we like this one and make sure to reserve portions of your icing batch to tint with different colors to achieve the design you have in mind.
The cookies are definitely a conversation starter and a delicious homemade gift. Pair them with chocolate-dipped Golden Figs and cheesecake fig tarts as featured in the photo below for a sweet ending to your celebration.
Hanukkah Sandwich Cookies
Ingredients
Cookies:
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 3/4 cup butter softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 tsp almond extract
Filling:
- 1 1/2 cups Orchard Choice or Sun-Maid California Figs stems removed
- 1/3 cup honey
- 3/4 tsp ground cinnamon
- 3 tbsp orange juice
- 1 tbsp orange zest
Instructions
- In small bowl, combine flour, baking powder and cinnamon; mix well. In large bowl, beat butter and sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and almond extract. Add flour mixture to butter mixture 1 cup at a time, mixing after each addition. Place cookie dough on plastic wrap; shape into a 12-inch disk. Refrigerate at least 1 hour. Preheat oven to 375°F. On well-floured surface, roll out dough to about 1/8-inch thick. Cut out cookies with Hanukkah-shaped cutters, making sure to dip cutters in flour before each use. Bake on ungreased cookie sheet 9-11 minutes or until cookies are lightly browned. Remove to wire rack; cool completely. Decorate 1/2 the cookies as desired; leave remaining cookies without decoration. In food processor, puree figs, honey, cinnamon, orange juice and zest until almost smooth. Spread about 1 tablespoon filling on undecorated cookies. Top with decorated cookies.
