Brown Butter and Pistachio Sablés

“Christmas Eve in the Baz household means one cookie and one cookie only: crumbly, sugar-dusted Greek kourabiedes,” says Molly Baz. “No one in the family can remember why (we’re not even Greek!), but every year, like clockwork, my mom pulls out the tattered recipe from an overstuffed manila folder and gets to work. Half the cookies go on a plate for Santa—along with carrot sticks for his reindeer (yes, I am still a whole-hearted believer)—and the rest disappear over the next few days. But this year I’ll switch things up, replacing the walnuts with pistachios, the cloves with subtler bay leaves, and the powdered sugar with a sleek sugar glaze. The result looks nothing like the original, but something tells me Santa won’t mind.”