This Cookie Goes All-In on Chocolate and Peppermint (Emergency Topping Tip Included)

Whether you're baking treats for cozy Saturday afternoons, family get togethers, or that next holiday party, we partnered with Ghirardelli to share a few of our favorite back-pocket sweets you can turn to again and again.

When it comes to holiday get-togethers, chocolate never seems to disappoint.

And when chocolate is mixed into cookie dough, then topped with more chocolate and possibly a smattering of peppermint candy cane—like in these Holiday Sables from our community member monkeymom—it's even more crowd-pleasing. (She's also shared an ingenius emergency cookie topping tip, so if you're just looking for that, skip to the bottom.)

Sables are comparable to shortbread—another crumbly, butter-laden friend. A snap to mix together and fun to shape into logs (especially with tiny humans as helpers), they're the kind of sandy-soft cookies that you didn't know you were dreaming of, that you didn't know you'd been waiting for.

You can vary the texture by slicing the logs into different widths: thin for crispy and more wafer-like; thicker for slightly chewy centers. They also take to changes in flavor nicely; think orange and cardamom, hazelnut and cinnamon, and even extra chocolate bits, Kitchen Butterfly muses in the recipe headnotes.

Plus, the sables are a good base for both dark or white chocolate topping. To please the masses, monkeymom makes ganache with both, keeping the cookies small enough so that people can taste each kind, then frost and top their own, like a cookie assembly line. (If you choose to make the white chocolate ganache, start off with less cream, adding more as you need it. The ganache may appear on the thin side at first, but will harden with time.)

If you need an emergency cookie topping or if you and your guests just can't wait for the ganache to cool, monkeymom suggests this melty chocolate shortcut instead: Place 4 bittersweet chocolate chips on top of each cookie when they come out of the oven. Put them back into the oven for 1 minute, then remove. Using the back of a spoon or a frosting spatula, spread the melted chocolate around each cookie, then sprinkle with peppermint shards. Remove to a wire rack and let cool (though if you're that in need of a quick cookie topping, you might as well just eat right away!).

A just-right baked good depends on high-quality ingredients—and good chocolate's a must. This holiday season, our sweetest secret is Ghirardelli's 60% Cacao Bittersweet Chocolate Chips—what's yours? See all of Ghirardelli's baking chocolate here.