Thumbprint Cookies

Thumbprint Cookies – you may also know them as Polish Tea Cakes or Butterballs.

Combining all things people love so much – butter, nuts and jam – they are classic and favorite cookies for any occasion.

And you know what? They are also really easy to make –  just have a look!

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To prepare the Thumbprint Cookies you need:

1/2 cup (113 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated white sugar

1 large egg

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup (140 grams) all-purpose flour

1/8 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup (100 grams) walnuts (or hazelnuts or almonds or pecans)

1/2 cup jam (any flavor you like)

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1. Preheat an oven to 350 F (176 C).

2. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and place the nuts on the sheet.

3. Toast the nuts for about 10 minutes.

4. Remove the nuts from the oven and let cool.

Then chop them finely and place them into a bowl.

Nice!

5. Now let’s make the dough.

In the bowl of your electric mixer mix the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.

6. Separate the egg and add the egg yolk to the batter.

Add the vanilla extract.

And then add the flour and salt to the batter and beat until just combined.

7. On a lightly floured surface form a log from the dough and cut it into about 12 – 15 equal pieces.

8. Form a ball from each piece and refrigerate for about 30 minutes (the balls will be easier to work with when refrigerated).

9. In a bowl whisk the egg white until frothy.

10. Dip a ball into the whisked egg white…

11. … and then roll in the nuts lightly.

Place the balls onto the prepared baking sheet spacing about 1 inch (2,5 cm) apart.

12. And now the funny part!

Take one well-built thumb and make an indentation into the center of each cookie.

13. Using a teaspoon, fill the cookie with the jam (if you want to make it more neat you can use a pastry bag or – like me – a small plastic bag with one corner cut off).

14. Bake for about 13-15 minutes.

Remove from the oven, place on a wire rack and let cool.

If you are planning to make these cookies in advance, you can bake them without the jam filling (in that case, reduce the baking time by a few minutes). They can be stored for about one week and filled with jam the same day as serving.

This recipe makes about 15 cookies.

Enjoy!

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Melting Moments Cookies

These cookies might possibly be the easiest cookies in the whole universe…

They contain just a few ingredients and are great fun to make.

And let me tell you that they taste just wonderful.

There is also one magical trick involved – Melting Moments Cookies replace some of the flour with cornstarch (corn flour) so they literally “melt-in-your-mouth”.

Yum!

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To prepare the delicious Melting Moments you need :

1 1/2 cup (210 grams) all-purpose flour

1/2 cup (60 grams) cornstarch (corn flour)

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (60 grams) powdered (or confectioner’s or icing) sugar

1 cup (227 grams) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping:

1 cup (110 grams) powdered (or confectioner’s) sugar, sifted

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1. In a bowl whisk together the flour, cornstarch and salt.

Set aside.

2. In the bowl of your electric mixer mix the butter and sugar …

… until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes).

Beat in the vanilla extract.

3. Gradually add the flour mixture.

Beat until incorporated.

Cover and refrigerate the dough for about one hour.

4. Preheat an oven to 350 F (175 C).

5. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

6. On a lightly floured surface form a log from the dough.

Cut the log into two halves.

And then cut each half into two halves, and then again and again, until you have 36 equal pieces.

7. Form a ball from each piece (it is going to be about 1 inch/2,5 cm in diameter).

(Hey, palm readers, what’s my fortune? Making many cookies, right?)

8. Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheet spacing them about 1 inch (2,5 cm) apart.

9. Bake for about 12 – 14 minutes or until the edges of the cookies start to brown.

Remove from the oven and place on a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes.

10. Now we are going to cover our lovely cookies with some sugar.

Line a baking pan or a tray with parchment paper and sprinkle about half of the confectioner’s sugar onto the bottom of the pan.

Then place the slightly cooled cookies on top of the sugar.

Thus we’ve covered the bottoms of the cookies and we can place them back on the cooling rack.

11. Put the remaining sugar in a strainer or a sieve and sprinkle the tops of the cookies.

Nice!

These delicious cookies store very well (up to two weeks – in airtight containers between sheets of wax paper) so they are very good for those who like to make their Holiday baking in advance.

This lovely recipe was adapted from joyofbaking.com and makes 3 dozen cookies.

Enjoy!

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