Thursday, December 21, 2006

Butter and Jam Thumbprints

Fresh out of the oven.

Buttery and sweet, these are lovely holiday cookies. The best part, however, is the dollop of jam in the middle. Next time, I'll make bigger thumbprints to fit in more jam!
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine salt
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2/3 cup sugar, plus more for rolling
1 large egg
1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped from pod, or 1/8 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup raspberry, cherry or strawberry jam
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats.
Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in a bowl.

In another bowl, whip the butter and the sugar with a hand-held mixer until fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in the egg and vanilla until just combined. Slowly beat in the dry ingredients in 2 additions, mixing just until incorporated.

Scoop the dough into 1-inch balls with a cookie or ice cream scoop and roll in sugar. Place about 2-inches apart on the prepared baking sheets. Press a thumbprint into the center of each ball, about 1/2-inch deep. Fill each indentation with about 3/4 teaspoon jam.

Bake cookies until the edges are golden, about 15 minutes. (For even color, rotate the pans from top to bottom about halfway through baking.) Cool cookies on the baking sheets. Store cookies in a tightly sealed container for up to 5 days.

Grade: A

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love these kind of cookies, especially with strawberry jam. Delicious!

maltese parakeet said...

yum, these are on my holiday favorite list, too! i like to roll them in finely chopped pecans before i smush them. apricot jam also makes a wonderful filling. merry christmas!

Anonymous said...

I just made these last Friday for our holiday open house--how great to see them on your blog! Great minds and all that. Merry Christmas Laura Rebecca!

Anonymous said...

These cookies, while excellent in theory, are a complete disaster.

If the recipe is followed exactly, the cookies turn into a ball of mush & flatten completely out when baking.

I tried cooling/freezing the dough, using larger & smaller balls of dough, deeper & shallower thumbprints, more & less jelly. I basically tried everything under the sun & the results were the same every time.

The recipe is flawed, plain & simple. Thanks for trying.

Cheers

Laura Rebecca said...

Hm, anonymous, I'm not sure where things went wrong for you. I've made these a number of times without a problem; take a look at the pic above.

If you click on the title of the recipe above, you'll see it takes you to the recipe's source -- The Food Network -- where it's got a five-star rating with 87 people commenting.

So, again, I'm not sure where you went wrong, but I think it has to do with your methodology versus the recipe.

It's a shame you didn't leave your contact info so I, or another commenter, could contact you for more information and help you have a successful baking experience.

Anonymous said...

Rebecca: I made these jam cookies tonight. They turned out perfect. I used 2 eggs. Thanks for the recipe.

Laura Rebecca said...

Cindy, thanks for your comment! I'm glad you enjoyed the recipe.

Have a happy and healthy new year!