Bring cheer – bring cookies

Sometimes selecting which holiday cookies to bake can be more trouble than the actual baking.

With every magazine and celebrity chef offering scores of ideas for holiday treats, how do you pick between one molasses cookie, gingerbread man or oatmeal-chocolate chip something-or-other and the 20 other similar recipes?

You don’t. The Associated Press has done it for you, leafing through dozens of magazines and stacks of books in search of just the right mix of holiday favorites that are easy, light on labor and look and taste great.

Giant Ginger Cookies

These cookies, from the special cookie edition of Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food magazine, are rich, chewy and spicy thanks to generous amounts of ginger, allspice, freshly ground black pepper and molasses.

These also make great gift cookies, as they improve with age, getting even chewier on the inside. They can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container for up to a week.

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon ginger

1/2 teaspoon allspice

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 1/2 sticks (12 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar, plus 1/3 cup for coating

6 tablespoons unsulfured molasses

1 large egg

Arrange oven racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. Preheat to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, allspice and pepper. Set aside.

With an electric mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar and 1/2 cup granulated sugar until light and fluffy. Add the molasses and egg and beat until well mixed. Slow the mixer to low and gradually add the dry ingredients, mixing until just combined.

Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap in plastic and freeze for 20 minutes for easier handling.

Tear off chunks of the dough and with your hands shape into 2-inch balls. Place the remaining 1/3 cup sugar in a bowl and roll the balls in it to coat. Place the coated dough balls on the prepared baking sheets, at least 4 inches apart.

Flatten the balls into 3-inch rounds. Pressing the balls with the bottom of a heavy mug works well. Sprinkle the cookies evenly with any sugar remaining in the bowl.

Bake, rotating the sheet halfway through, until the cookies are set and cracked on top, 12 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Yield: 12 cookies

Approximate nutrition per cookie: 312 calories, 9 grams fat (2 grams saturated, 24 percent fat calories), 6 grams protein, 55 grams carbohydrate, 17 milligrams cholesterol, 1 gram dietary fiber, 349 milligrams sodium.

Chewy Cranberry- Oatmeal Cookies

Every tin of holiday cookies needs something oatmealy. And these cookies from the December issue of Fine Cooking magazine are a great choice, combining the traditional oats and brown sugar with tangy dried cranberries.

Like many drop cookies, these really spread as they cook. Be sure to leave ample space around them on the baking sheet.

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

2 1/2 cups rolled oats

2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, slightly softened

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 tablespoon honey

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/3 cups dried cranberries

1 cup chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Lightly oil two baking sheets or line them with parchment paper.

In a medium bowl, mix the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon and oats. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and both sugars until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the honey and vanilla and beat until blended.

Add the flour mixture in two batches, beating until well blended. Stir in the cranberries and walnuts.

Drop the dough, one heaping tablespoon per cookie, about 2 inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Bake until the centers of the cookies are soft, but no longer look wet, about 10 to 12 minutes. Rotate the sheets if necessary for even browning.

Let the cookies cool 5 minutes on the baking sheets. Transfer to a rack to cool completely.

Yield: About 46 cookies

Approximate nutrition per cookie: 125 calories, 6 grams fat (3 grams saturated, 43 percent fat calories), 2 grams protein, 16 grams carbohydrate, 20 milligrams cholesterol, 1 gram dietary fiber, 58 milligrams sodium.

Chocolate Peppermint Stars

What an attractive and simple, but still unusual, design – star-shaped chocolate cookies drizzled with ribbons of melted chocolate, dusted with crushed candy canes, and finished with yet another drizzle of chocolate.

The design came from the December issue of Bon Appetit magazine, but I used my preferred chocolate cookie recipe from King Arthur Flour’s “The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion.”

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

3/4 cup Dutch-process cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) butter

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar

1 large egg

1 tablespoon water

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

6 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate

1/2 cup (about 3 1/2 ounces) finely crushed red-and-white-striped hard peppermint candies or candy canes

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, salt and baking powder. Set aside.

In a separate, larger bowl, use an electric mixer to beat the butter until light. Add the sugar and beat until well incorporated. Add the egg, water and vanilla and beat until the mixture has lightened both in color and texture, about 2 minutes. Gently mix in the dry ingredients.

Shape the dough into a flattened disk. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate 3 to 4 hours, or overnight. This dough is very soft, so it is imperative to chill it before you roll it out.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease two or three baking sheets (or line them with parchment).

On a clean, heavily floured surface, roll the dough to a 1/8-inch thickness. Use a large star cutter to cut cookies from the dough. Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheets. The cookies won’t expand much, so you don’t need to leave much space between them.

Bake for 17 to 18 minutes. They are easy to burn, so watch them carefully. When you start to smell them, they’re probably done. Transfer the cookies to a cooling rack, and cool them completely.

Place the chocolate in a glass measuring cup. Microwave in 20-second increments, stirring between, until melted. Dunk a spoon in the chocolate and drizzle the chocolate over the cookies in a zigzag pattern. Sprinkle the cookies with crushed candies, then drizzle with remaining chocolate.

Yield: About 30 cookies, depending on size of cutter

Approximate nutrition per cookie, based on 30: 139 calories, 7 grams fat (4 grams saturated, 40 percent fat calories), 2 grams protein, 21 grams carbohydrate, 20 milligrams cholesterol, 1 gram dietary fiber, 95 milligrams sodium.

Jam Stars

Every holiday cookie collection has to have something dainty and pretty. For that, we have these cookies from “Baking with Love” by the editors of Reader’s Digest (2006, $24.95).

3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup ground almonds

3/4 cup caster (superfine) sugar

1 1/2 sticks (3/4 cup) butter, cut into small pieces

3 egg yolks

2/3 cup currant jam

2 to 3 tablespoons powdered sugar

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the flour, ground almonds and sugar. Add the butter and egg yolks, then beat until mixed and crumbly, about 1 minute. Press the dough together by hand.

Divide the dough into three pieces. Shape each piece into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate 30 minutes. Halfway through the chilling, preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Roll out each ball of dough on a lightly floured work surface, or between two sheets of parchment paper. Using a 2 1/2-inch star cookie cutter, cut out cookies. Use a smaller star-shaped cutter to cut stars out of the center of half the cookies.

Arrange the cookies on the prepared baking sheets. Bake 10 to 12 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Spread a thin layer of jam over the cookies without the center cut out. Sift the powdered sugar thickly over the other cookies. Place a sugar-dusted cookie over each jam-coated cookie.

Yield: About 70 cookies

Approximate nutrition per cookie: 68 calories, 3 grams fat (1 gram saturated, 40 percent fat calories), 1 gram protein, 9 grams carbohydrate, 14 milligrams cholesterol, less than 1 gram dietary fiber, 21 milligrams sodium.