Every bit as impressive as towering cakes, chocolate tarts and fruity pies, this week’s Most Popular Pin of the Week is a far-simpler-to-make dessert that’s refreshingly light and zesty. Giada’s top-rated Lemon Ricotta Cookies With Lemon Glaze (pictured above) are buttery bites laced with creamy ricotta cheese and fresh lemon juice, plus they’re easy enough to bake for your family but elegant enough that you can serve to guests at a party.

For more recipe inspiration for sweet-tooth-satisfying desserts, visit Food Network’s Let’s Bake Board on Pinterest.

Get the recipe: Giada’s Lemon Ricotta Cookies With Lemon Glaze

When it comes to stocking the cookie jar, chocolate chippers and frosted sugar cut-outs are go-to favorites, but just like those indulgent treats, peanut butter cookies are also timeless standbys that both kids and grownups enjoy. Soft and chewy, most peanut butter cookies require just minutes in the oven, so they’re ideal bites for last-minute entertaining or when you simply need to satisfy a sudden sweet-tooth craving. Check out Food Network’s top-five recipes for easy-to-make peanut butter cookies below to find a mix of classic and dressed-up desserts alike, then tell FN Dish: What’s your favorite kind of cookie?

5. Peanut Butter-Chocolate Chip-Bacon Cookies — Food Network Magazine takes peanut butter cookie dough to the next level by incorporating honey-roasted peanuts and a pinch of chipotle powder, plus crumbled crispy bacon and rendered bacon drippings to create the ultimate sweet and savory bites.

4. Paula’s Peanut Butter Cookies — For an extra-special touch of decadence, add a Hershey’s Kiss to each cookie just after they’re removed from the oven. Try to work quickly so the chocolates can gently mold to the center while they cookies are still hot.

Get the top three recipes

Here in Food Network Kitchens, we love simple, classic recipes. We are also paid to think about food all day. So we’ve taken classic foods and drinks and reimagined them in three, four or five different ways. No standard recipes here, just the occasional technique and pictures. Think of them as picture recipes.

Cookie cakes are a great way to celebrate without having to spend hours making a cake and icing. They are easy, fun and delicious. All you need is store-bought cookie dough and a few ingredients.

First, start with the classic version: Using the entire package of store-bought cookie dough, press it into a roughly 10 to 12 inch-diameter circle on a parchment-lined sheet pan. Bake according to package directions. It may take slightly longer than package time, depending on your oven.

Get four new ideas to add new life to the classic:

These triangle-shaped treats may look like your average jam-filled cookies, almost like thumbprints, but they’re actually very special and have a significant meaning in Judaism.

Hamantaschen cookies are eaten traditionally every year on the holiday of Purim, which begins today, February 23 at sundown. The tender shortbread-like dough is the perfect vehicle for fruit, seed and nut fillings. A poppy seed filling is traditional, but you’ll also find recipes that call for raspberry jam, apricot preserves, prune lekvar or even chocolate-hazelnut spread. Sometimes you may even see nuts ground into to the dough.

Find out how the cookies are made and vote on your favorite filling

We all get a bit territorial over our chocolate chip cookies. Some like them so crispy a discernible crunch ensues. Others like them so soft that it’s unclear whether they ever reached the oven. In the end, however, there’s no argument over this cookie’s ability to bring us back — especially when a glass of milk is involved. Preheat those ovens. It’s time for some cookies.

The recipe for classic Chocolate Chip Cookies, in reality, needs no fiddling. It’s soft on the inside and crispy on the outside. Just out of the oven, the chocolate chips are so gooey they stick to your fingers.

Still, Food Network Magazine has its own take on the many faces of the chocolate chip cookie, perfect for those a bit particular about consistency. Check out its recipes for Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies, Crispy Chocolate Chip Cookies and even Cakey Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Get more chocolate chip cookie recipes from family and friends

Fall has finally given way to winter. Driveways are being shoveled, snow tires are mounted onto cars and steaming mugs of hot chocolate warm our souls. I, however, sit on a snowy-white beach contemplating what to bake for Santa’s annual visit, a tradition my mom started when I was very young.

Fast-forward to today: As one who works with flour, sugar and eggs, I bring joy year-round (to the many sweet tooths out there), but never a more important time than at holidays. This time of year, I bake for a “claus.”

I like to deliver tasty treats to my local police and fire stations as my way of saying thank you for saving lives. All of this leads me to sharing some of my fun holiday traditions. Some are past favorites, some are newer ideas soon to become classics.

Cookies left on a plate for Santa maybe very traditional, but who says it has to be boring? Invite the neighbors, family and friends over for a decorating party.

Find out how I set up my decorating party

Gingerbread houses aren’t the only way to decorate with cookies around holiday time. Classic cut-out cookies make quite handsome ornaments. But what makes them even better than other handmade ornaments — like paper stars or pipe cleaner snowflakes — is that you can eat them (best the same day you bake them, of course). So if you’re bored of the same old decorations every year, why not try baking your own ornaments? Your only limitation is your imagination — or the size of your cookie cutter collection.

These Stained Glass Wreath Cookies make the perfect hanging ornament for your tree. The recipe from Sandra Lee uses store-bought sugar cookie dough to make it even easier. The colorful centers are created using hard candies that melt in the oven to replicate the look of stained glass. For an extra dazzling touch, use icing to affix silver dragees. Whatever you do, don’t forget to cut a hole at the top of each cookie using a large straw after they come out of the oven. It will make hanging them much easier.

My Great-Aunt Doris made the best rugelach. A nurse who preferred baking to hospital work, Aunt Doris never turned down an opportunity to help cater her charity functions, Temple’s holiday dinners and family gatherings.

Her instinct to feed continually vexed her sister, because no matter how clear my grandmother was that the dinner party menu was entirely handled, Doris would show up with a Saran-covered platter of freezer strudel or rugelach. At the end of the meal, my grandmother would be forced to watch as her guests gobbled up the party-crashing treat and ignored her own carefully selected pastries.

Because I grew up a country away from my Aunt Doris, I only got to see her once or twice a year. As soon as we landed in Philadelphia, however, she’d march me up to my grandmother’s apartment (they lived in the same building), slip an apron over my head and pull a stool over to the counter so that I could help her roll the dough. We’d make cinnamon twists, Mandelbrot and rugelach.

Before you start your dough, read these tips

I consider myself to be a moderately adventurous eater and determined cook. I enjoy expanding my food horizons and working with new ingredients. Saffron, anchovies — bring it on. But I have to admit, every once in a while all I want is a cookie. Not a cookie with sea salt or cocoa nibs, but a simple cookie, filled with goodies that a 10-year-old would go crazy over. Enter Monster Cookies.

There are some spooky recipes out there for Halloween, but Monster Cookies are anything but scary (despite what their name implies). The whole process is beautifully simple: just stir, mix and set the timer. Don’t be afraid of a kitchen mess because you’ll only need one bowl. The cookies are filled with peanut butter, chocolate chips, M&M’s and oats — a baking newbie can’t go wrong when it comes to flavor.

Here are a few things to consider before making this recipe

Cookies and milk are one of the most classic combinations out there. One of the biggest problems facing milk-and-cookie lovers, however, is the milky mess the dunking experience can sometimes become. You lose the cookie, you dip your dirty hands in the milk, your fingers get sticky — the list of problems goes on. Enter the Dipr: a new kind of spoon that will cradle your cookie when dunked in milk and prevent it from dropping or getting crumbly. You can even eat the cookie right off the spoon for a completely mess-free experience.

You can buy your own Dipr here, or enter in the comment field below for a chance to win one. To enter: Tell us about your favorite Food Network cookie recipe to dunk in milk in the comments (you must include the link to a recipe). We’re giving away a Dipr to six lucky, randomly selected commenters.

Read official rules before entering