Happy Holidays from the L.A. Times Test Kitchen!

Can you smell all the holiday cookies? We’ve been baking all week in the Test Kitchen, testing our Top 10 recipes from this year’s L.A. Times Holiday Cookie Bake-Off. And, well, we’ve gone full throttle with the holiday spirit. (Nothing says Happy Holidays like a bunch of Santa hats, and a reindeer, and an elf -- oh, and a pink-flocked Christmas tree.)

Over 150 entries were submitted in the L.A. Times Holiday Cookie Bake-Off this year, and more than 2,500 votes were cast by readers. We took the Top 50 vote-getters and put them to the test at Le Cordon Bleu cooking school in Pasadena before testing the Top 10 here at The Times.

The recipes are scheduled to run in the Saturday, Dec. 15, section. Here are our 10 favorite holiday cookies from this year’s Cookie Bake-Off:

• Cherry-pistachio rugelach — Samantha Ferraro
• Snow cookies — Christina Conte
• Cranberry orange pockets — Linda Amendt
• Lemony moons and stars shortbread — Carol Eblen
• Santa’s coat buttons — Joan Herzberg
• Mexican wedding cakes — Deb Love
• Gluten-free wedding cakes — Lida Frankel
• Joulu Pipparkakor — Sean Early
• Rosemary apricot bars — Kelli Abrahamian
• Almond sweeties — Laurel Gillis

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You can find Noelle Carter on Facebook, Google+, Twitter and Pinterest. Email Noelle at noelle.carter@latimes.com.