Tag Archives: holiday baking

Mocha Kissy Cookies require no kissing before eating

Posted on by
1

When you work with preschoolers as I did for many years during my career in early childhood education, you learn how to hold in your laughs. From the mouths of those sweet, innocent little children come words that express their most serious thoughts. More than once during those years with young children I was astonished as I listened to their conversations.

I’ll never forget the day I was sitting in a child-size chair at a kidney-bean-shaped table with short legs, enjoying a snack with a small group of three-year-old children. Out of the blue, one little girl said, “Dolly Parton’s not a Christian.” Her big eyes glistened. Her mouth kept moving as she nonchalantly continued to eat her snack.

On the chair right beside her, another blue-eyed little girl with long blonde hair spoke up. “She’s not Jewish, either.” It was so surprising, it was humorous. I held back a little giggle. As Art Linkletter would have said, “Kids say the darndest things!”

Each year just before Christmas, we had a holiday gathering for all the children and their families at the campus child care center I worked at for several years. Each family contributed a plate of holiday treats.

One year, as I moved around the Center visiting with parents and siblings of the preschoolers I spent time with each day, I happened upon a conversation between two preschoolers. They each held one of those peanut butter cookies with a Hershey kiss in the middle. “Kiss me,” said the little girl as she looked at the confused little boy in front of her. “You can’t take a bite of your kissy cookie until you kiss me. That’s what my mom and dad do,” she said sweetly. I pictured her young parents sitting on the couch in their living room at home with a tin of Kissy Cookies resting on their laps, sharing a quick little peck as they ate cookies together. I held back a little giggle.

The little boy wanted nothing to do with any kind of kiss other than the chocolate one in the middle of the cookie he held in his small hand. He turned on his heels and walked away, the cookie held up to his mouth as he began to chew the chocolate out of its middle.

Mocha Kissy Cookies do have a milk-chocolate kiss stuck into their middle. No kisses are required before eating them, though.

The cookie dough comes from a recipe for cookies I got at a cookie swap in 1992. Typically, the dough is rolled into balls and smashed with a fork to make a criss-cross pattern on each cookie. For Mocha Kissy Cookies, I rolled each ball of dough in an egg white whipped with enough water to make it thin and then rolled them in cinnamon-sugar before baking. The result is a crunchy outside with a chewy coffee-flavored inside, a hint of cinnamon and a big kiss of chocolate — mocha flavors through and through.

It’s a cookie adults will enjoy more than children. If you’re having friends over, serve Mocha Kissy Cookies with a cup of Holiday Hot Mocha topped with fluffy whipped cream. That recipe is in my column this week. Click here to get to that recipe.

Eat, sip and be merry. Kissing requirements are up to you.

Mocha Kissy Cookies

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 2 tablespoons instant coffee granules or espresso powder
  • 1/3 cup shortening
  • 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
  • 1 tablespoon milk
  • 1 tablespoon hot water
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1 egg white mixed with a couple of teaspoons of water and whipped with a whisk
  • 48 Hershey’s milk chocolate kisses, wrappers removed

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

Sift flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder and instant coffee granules or espresso powder into a bowl and set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, cream shortening, brown sugar and 1/2 cup granulated sugar, egg, vanilla and milk until fluffy. Add sifted dry ingredients and blend. Add hot water and mix. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. (I used a #100 portion scooper).

Mix remaining 3 tablespoons granulated sugar with cinnamon in a bowl. Quickly dip each ball of dough into a bowl of egg white and water mixture. With a fork, transfer ball to sugar mixture and roll to coat. Place sugar-coated ball of dough onto prepared baking sheet. Bake in preheated 400-degree oven for 8 to 10 minutes, or until lightly browned.

Remove from oven and immediately push a milk chocolate kiss into the middle of each cookie. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet. Use a metal spatula to transfer cookies to wire rack to cool completely. Makes 3 1/2 to 4 dozen cookies.

 

 

Pecan-Topped Gingersnap Cookies

Posted on by
2

A couple of weeks ago I was calling around to area bookstores, trying to find a specific book that I wanted to give as a gift. I found a copy at Beagle Books, an independent bookstore in Park Rapids, Minnesota. So, a few days later, my husband and I were driving down Highway 71, heading to the cozy little bookstore. We wound up making an afternoon of walking up and down Main Street, browsing the shops and having some lunch at 3rd Street Market.

It was while we were in Summerhill Farm that my husband discovered some gingersnap cookies he fell in love with after the first bite. Owner of Summerhill Farm, Eileen Reish, had made the cookies for holiday shoppers to nibble as they browsed through her store. I had passed them up. I was filled to the brim after having a large, chubby avocado wrap for lunch at 3rd Street Market. Before we left the store that afternoon, Eileen had already emailed the gingersnap recipe to my husband. He forwarded the recipe to me. I guess he thought I’d be more likely to make the cookies than he would.

Each morning this week, I would sneak out to the garage to get the tin holding pfeffernusse, one of my new favorites. I had made them on Sunday during springerle baking (see my previous post) and baked them on Monday. They were going fast. I love these cookies, chock full of dried fruit, chopped nuts, sweet spices and anise. They seem to be one of those cookies you either love or hate. I love. My husband hates. And that’s a good thing, actually, because it leaves more of them for me.

The tin was nearing an empty state and I was beginning to panic.

That’s when I decided to make a batch of Eileen’s Gingersnaps, which came to Eileen from one of her coworkers, Peg Mosbo. According to Eileen, Peg is a fabulous baker. I was hoping to create cookies that would at least give me a little bit of a fix for my pfeffernusse addiction. To do that, I had to adjust Peg’s recipe by adding some allspice and black pepper. If I wanted my husband to eat them, there was no way I could add anise oil to the cookie dough. I wouldn’t even think about stirring dried fruitcake mix into the gingery dough. But, I could safely push a pecan half into the top of each cookie before baking. I rolled the cookie balls in sugar to give them some holiday sparkle. Peg Mosbo’s original recipe says to coat the baked gingersnaps with a powdered sugar glaze.

These cookies are soft and chewy, spicy and sweet. A perfectly satisfying Christmas cookie with their spicy fragrance. I love them. But, they’re not pfeffernusse. No…….they’re gingersnaps. Mighty good ones.

Pecan-Topped Gingersnap Cookies

  • 1 ½ cups butter
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 4 ½ cups flour
  • 2 tsp baking soda
  • ½ cup dark molasses (I used half mild molasses and half full-flavored dark molasses)
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon
  • 2 teaspoons ground cloves
  • 2 teaspoons ginger
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • Sugar, for rolling cookies in
  • Pecan halves

Cream butter and sugar. Mix in molasses and eggs. Sift dry
ingredients together then mix with butter-sugar mixture until blended.
Chill the dough. Roll into small balls. Roll balls in sugar to coat. Push a pecan half into the top of each cookie. Place on ungreased or parchment-lined cookie sheets and bake 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees. Makes 10 to 11 dozen cookies when using a #100 portion scooper.

German Springerle-Making Day

Posted on by
11

I’ve seen wooden molds with delicate designs carved into them many times as I’ve browsed through antique shops and rummaged my way through flea markets. I never really knew what they were supposed to be used for. A neighbor once gave me the light colored rolling pin you can see in the photo above. She’d had it for years and wasn’t exactly sure if she’d ever used it, but she thought it would be a nice addition to the collection of old rolling pins I kept in an old wicker bike basket hanging on the wall in my kitchen. That was years ago. I’ve never used that carved rolling pin. Until last Sunday.

I was invited to join the Oja family in their spacious kitchen for their annual springerle-making day. Snowflakes were falling as another friend and I pulled into the long driveway leading to their house tucked into the countryside outside of Bemidji, Minnesota. As I stepped into the warm and cozy home, I was immediately hit with the aroma of mulling spices and cardamom. Beth Oja, our hostess, had prepared Finnish Pulla and mulled cider made from apples the family had picked from their trees and pressed themselves. I thought I might be in heaven. And, I knew this was going to be a great day.

Beth had already pulled out the tried-and-true springerle recipe that she had gotten many years ago from a German family she was friends with when she was growing up in Burlington, Iowa. For many Germans, the crunchy, biscuit-like springerles (an archaic German word meaning a springing or jumping horse) are a Christmas tradition.

Beth has a collection of springerle molds that she has gathered over the years, finding some old ones at flea markets and antique shops. She has some newer molds, too. She recommends anyone looking to buy a wooden mold or two to check out her favorite resource for springerle molds, House on the Hill in River Forest, Illinois. Beth keeps her molds out on display all year long.

Anise-flavored sweet dough, rich with butter and eggs is rolled out, stamped with wooden molds, and the embossed design air-dried before baking. In the heat of the oven, the imprinted dough puffs up like little pillows. They are almost too beautiful to eat. Almost.

In one bowl, Beth mixed sugar with egg yolks and butter until the mixture was light and creamy.

In another bowl, the egg whites were beaten until stiff. The beaten whites then got folded into the fluffy yolk mixture. Beth set the timer for 20 minutes and let the mixer go at medium speed.

An old-time leavening agent called Hartshorn, sometimes referred to as bakers ammonia, is used rather than baking powder to produce the fluffiest texture possible. Don’t stick your nose in the jar — the smell is awful. It could actually take your breath away — in a bad way. But once the dough is baked, hartshorn cannot be detected by smell or taste. It seems to disappear and the anise takes over, casting its strong licorice aroma throughout the kitchen.

Finally, the flour is incorporated into the batter and it’s ready to roll. Beth buys bleached flour only once a year, and that’s for the springerle. One five-pound bag is just enough for one batch of the dough. The bleached flour keeps the baked springerle almost as white as snow.

The counter is cleared to make way for the dough, the molds and plenty of flour for rolling.

The dough is rolled out to just the right thickness.

Springerle molds are brushed with flour before being pressed onto the dough.

The molds are pressed onto the dough, creating delicate designs.

Making springerle is a group effort.

It takes almost surgical precision to cut out each imprint.

Unbaked springerles are left out to dry overnight. Baking comes the next day.

The same dough can be used to make German pfeffernusse by adding chopped nuts, chopped dried fruitcake mixture and heavenly spices.

I discovered the Oja kitchen is never quiet. No sooner was the springerle dough off the work counter, the molds and rolling pins swept away, and out came some cracker dough.

A successful day of making springerle. I came home with two trays filled with beautifully embossed cookies. I left them out on the kitchen table overnight. In the morning, I was greeted with the wonderful fragrance of anise. I’ve left a few of my baked springerles out on the kitchen counter just to keep the house smelling like a German Christmas.

Beth’s Springerles by way of the Blaufuss family in Burlington, Iowa

  • 6 cups sugar
  • 12 egg yolks
  • 3/4 pound (3 sticks) butter

Cream sugar, yolks and butter until smooth.

  • 12 egg whites

In another large bowl, beat egg whites until stiff. Add to egg yolk mixture and beat at medium speed for 20 minutes.

Add:

Beat at medium speed for 10 minutes.

Add:

  • 5 pounds bleached all-purpose flour

Mix well.

Roll out pieces of dough to 1/8-inch thickness on a floured surface. Press with springerle molds. Cut out each cookie. Dry springerle, uncovered, overnight.

Bake on parchment-lined baking sheet in 350-degree oven for 10 to 12 minutes. Cooled springerle freeze well.


A secret ingredient and a generous chunk of cream cheese boost Claiborne’s pecan pie right over the top!

Posted on by
17

As the old saying goes, “All good things are worth waiting for.” One of those good things was created in my kitchen last week — a pie with a vodka-spiked pastry shell, filled to the brim with Craig Claiborne’s Pecan Pie Filling over a layer of sweetened cream cheese. Yes, definitely worth the wait. A two-year wait, to be exact.

A couple of years ago the San Jose Mercury News published a Thanksgiving Primer that included a recipe for Foolproof Pie Dough. Not only did the pie dough include butter and shortening, the liquid in the dough included more than just ice cold water. Vodka was in the list of ingredients. I was skeptical, yet intrigued enough by the unusual recipe to print it out and tuck it into a file for another day.

Apparently, the staff at Cook’s Illustrated determined this boozy pie dough to be the best after making 148 crusts in the experimentation process. J. Kenji Alt, who was on staff at Cook’s Illustrated at the time and a developer of the foolproof pie dough with the secret ingredient, is quoted in the Mercury News: “Vodka is essential to the texture of the crust and imparts no flavor—do not substitute. This dough will be moister and more supple than most standard pie doughs and will require more flour to roll out.” (These days you’ll find J. Kenji Lopez-Alt experimenting with food and sharing his results and recommendations in The Food Lab column over at Serious Eats.)

I prepared the foolproof pie dough, complete with a generous dose of vodka. The recipe made enough dough for two crusts. I used the first disk of chilled pastry to form the shell that became a bowl for Craig Claiborne’s Pecan Pie Filling. The pastry was soft and easy to roll. No cracks around the edges. The dough draped nicely into the pie plate with no tearing. I found that I used a little bit more flour on my work surface than I would use for other pastry dough I’ve made. I recommend mixing the crust a day before you need to make your pie. The nice long chill -time makes it much less sticky and easier to roll out.

The baked crust had not even a slight whisper of alcohol. The alcohol evaporates during baking, leaving just the right amount of moisture behind.  Christopher Kimball, publisher of Cook’s Illustrated and host of the PBS show America’s Test Kitchen, explains the science behind the whole alcohol-in-the-pie-dough thing at the NPR website. This tender, flaky crust is the only one I’ll make from now on whenever I make a pie. It took me two years to finally try the recipe, but the result was so worth the wait.

And, Craig Claiborne’s Pecan Pie Filling is the only one I’ll ever use when I make pecan pie. It is amazing. In my column this week, I explain how I received a copy of Claiborne’s recipe, complete with his signature, a couple of years ago — around the same time I discovered the Foolproof Pie Dough. I kept both recipes together in a plastic sleeve, tucked into the file box on top of my desk. My plan was to save the spirited pastry for Claiborne’s filling. It turns out, the combination is a match made in heaven. Seriously.

That’s not the end of the story, though. I still had a disk of foolproof pie dough in my refrigerator. I made another batch of Craig Claiborne’s Pie Filling. This time, I spread the unbaked pie shell with a layer of sweetened cream cheese before pouring in the pecan filling.

As the pie baked, the layer of cream cheese rose to the top, pushing the pecan pieces up with it. And, just beneath the cream cheese was a thick layer of ooey, gooey, creamy, dreamy almost-caramel against a flaky, melt-in-the-mouth crust. The pie tasted a little sweeter than the one I’d made without the cream cheese. But, totally over-the-top decadent.

Yes, another good thing worth waiting for.

(just a note: I baked my pie around 1:00 Saturday afternoon. It wasn’t cool enough to slice by the time darkness fell over my house. So, a photo will be coming sometime today. But, it can definitely be eaten in the dark :)

(Another note on 11/14/10: Picture posted. And, just to let you know, Cream Cheese Pecan Pie a la Claiborne is quite delicious first thing in the morning with a cup of French Press coffee. I’m licking my sticky fingers and smacking my lips!)

Fresh pecans -- an important ingredient in any pecan pie

Cream Cheese Pecan Pie a la Claiborne

  • 1 (10-inch) unbaked pie shell

Cream cheese layer:

  • 1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
  • 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

With electric hand mixer, beat cream cheese, sugar, egg, salt and vanilla until smooth and creamy. Spread mixture over bottom of unbaked pie shell. Put in refrigerator while making pecan filling.

Craig Claiborne’s Pecan Pie Filling:

(a recipe Craig Claiborne demonstrated in a cooking program he did in Connecticut in 1960. In a very round-about way, the recipe, complete with his signature,  wound up in my hands.)

  • 1¼ cups dark corn syrup
  • 1 cup firmly packed dark or light brown sugar
  • ¼ cup (one half stick) butter
  • 4 eggs
  • 1½ cups coarsely chopped or broken pecan meats
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Combine corn syrup and brown sugar in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring until the sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, add the butter and stir until it melts.

Put the eggs in a mixing bowl and beat. Pour in the syrup mixture, stirring. Add the chopped pecan meats and vanilla extract. Stir to blend well.

Place pie plate with the pastry shell and cream cheese layer on a silicone baking mat-lined baking sheet or a foil-lined baking sheet. Pour pecan filling over the cream cheese layer.

Carefully slide the pan into the 350-degree preheated oven. Bake the pie for 60 minutes or until the filling is set. It will be soft and jiggly, a little bit like jello and will set as it cools. Cool pie on a wire rack.

Yield: 12 servings.

Tip from the cook

For several years before I moved away from Fargo, I was a member of Soroptimist International of Fargo, a worldwide organization of business and professional women dedicated to make a difference in the lives of women and girls. One of the major fundraisers of the Fargo group is their annual pecan sale. One-pound bags of fresh pecans from the Whaley Pecan Company in Troy, Alabama will get you so spoiled, you won’t be able to use any other pecans — for baking or for snacking. The Fargo Soroptimists have just started selling the 2010 batch of fresh pecans. I buy a case each year. It’s just enough to get me through the year until the next pecan sale. If you’re interested in purchasing some of the Soroptimist pecans, send me an email request (food@forumcomm.com) and I can give you the contact information.

Pumpkin and Pecans in one or two bites

Posted on by
15

I’m not real keen on pumpkin pie, but I love pecans…and butter…and brown sugar…with just a little pumpkin in the mix. That’s what these tiny tarts are made of. One-Bite Pumpkin-Pecan Pies remind me of pecan tassies, those rich little treats that often show up on holiday cookie trays. A little pumpkin and spice added to the mix adds delicious depth of flavor, so when you pop the first tiny pie into your mouth you get a delightful surprise. Especially if you were expecting pecans only.

The recipe I used comes from the book, “Our Favorite Recipes,” compiled by the Claremont Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Serving Sullivan County (whoa, that’s a much bigger mouthful than a One-Bite Pie!). It comes from Claremont, New Hampshire.

I made just a couple of changes to the recipe, using organic unsweetened coconut milk beverage instead of milk and also added some Bacardi Gold rum. Mmmm, good flavor. The filling is baked in little cream cheese pastry crusts.

Each One-Bite Pumpkin-Pecan Pie offers just enough pumpkin for my tastebuds. I served the mini-Pies to dinner guests the other evening. Two One-Bite Pumpkin-Pecan Pies per serving snuggled up to a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream and drizzled with homemade caramel sauce was a happy ending to our meal.

I’ve got some of the baked Pies in my freezer. I’ll be pulling them out at Thanksgiving. No pumpkin pie for me, thank you. A couple of One-Bite Pumpkin-Pecan Pies is all I’ll need.

One-Bite Pumpkin-Pecan Pies

Pastry:

  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 1 (3-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour

Filling:

  • 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
  • 1/4 cup canned pumpkin puree
  • 1 egg yolk
  • 2 tablespoons butter, melted
  • 1 tablespoon unsweetened coconut milk beverage (or milk)
  • 1 tablespoon Bacardi Gold rum
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Topping:

  • 1/2 cup coarsely chopped pecans
  • 1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon butter, melted

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

For pastry, beat butter and cream cheese in a medium bowl until creamy. Stir in flour. Divide dough into 24 equal pieces and roll each piece into a ball. Press dough evenly in bottom and up sides of ungreased miniature (1 3/4-inch) muffin pans. Bake in preheated 325-degree oven for 10 minutes.

While pastry cups are baking, prepare filling by combining 1/2 cup brown sugar, pumpkin, egg yolk, melted butter, coconut milk, rum, vanilla, nutmeg and cinnamon.

Make topping by combining pecans, brown sugar and 1 tablespoon melted butter.

Spoon pumpkin filling into warm pastry cups. Sprinkle topping over each one. Bake in 325-degree oven for 25 to 30 minutes, or until filling is set. Cool in pans on wire rack for 10 to 15 minutes. Carefully loosen the pies and remove from pans. Serve warm or cool completely on wire racks. Makes 2 dozen one-bite pies.

Tip from the cook

Baked One-Bite Pumpkin-Pecan Pies can be packed and tightly sealed into a freezer container. I’ll be pulling mine out in about 5 weeks.



Two darlin’ cookies

Posted on by
5

 Darlin’ little clementines are just the right size to fit into a little hand. They are easy to peel and so sweet and juicy. And right now, they are showing off their bright orange color in all of the grocery stores.

Their season is short, though, so I’ve been eating them, juicing them and using the juice for baking. The juice freezes nicely, making it possible to enjoy the sweet-flavored liquid well beyond their showing-off time in the stores.

During the last week, I’ve used the zest and juice of the clementine to make granita and cookies.

Little Darlin’ Melting Moments are fashioned after a cookie I tasted years ago when I belonged to a recipe exchange group. Just before Christmas, our small group of women would get together to share some of our holiday baking. Melting Moments were made with cornstarch and powdered sugar, developing a cookie that did melt in the mouth. I fashioned Little Dalrin’ Melting Moments cookies using that basic recipe from years ago as a foundation for a sweet and tart cookie made with zest and juice of clementines.

Little Darlin’s Melting Moments are perfect with a cup of Christmas tea or a scoop of clementine granita.

Little Darlin’ Melting Moments

3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup powdered sugar

Zest of 2 clementines

3 tablespoons fresh clementine juice

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/4 teaspoon salt

Glaze:

2 tablespoons fresh clementine juice

6 tablespoons powdered sugar, sifted

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted

For dough: Cream together butter and powdered sugar until smooth. Stir in clementine zest, juice and vanilla. In separate bowl, sift together flour, cornstarch and salt. Stir into butter mixture. Chill dough for at least 1 hour. Overnight is good.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Shape dough into 1-inch balls and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Smash each ball with the bottom of a glass that has been dipped in sugar. It works well to attach a damp paper towel with a rubber band to the bottom of the glass. Bake cookies for about 12 minutes and allow to cool.

For glaze, whisk together juice, powdered sugar and melted butter. Pour glaze over cookies to cover. Allow to set for about 1 hour. Makes 4 dozen.

 

Chocolate-Dipped Clementine Cookies are a slice-and-bake shortbread cookie. They are spiked with ground zest of the clementine. At holiday time, it’s nice to have a log of cookie dough in the refrigerator that is ready to bake when you’re ready to bake. The cooled cookies can be dipped into semisweet chocolate. Citrus and chocolate are two flavors that marry well.

Chocolate-Dipped Clementine Shortbread Cookies

1 clementine

1 cup sugar

 1 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate morsels

1 teaspoon shortening

Use a vegetable peeler to remove the zest of the clementine. Place zest in a food processor or blender with the sugar. Process for 1 minutes or until the zest is reduced to fine pieces. Add the butter and process until fluffy. Add the flour, baking soda and salt and process for 25 seconds. Form the dough into a log and cover with plastic wrap and chill the dough for at least 2 hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Cut the log into 1/4-inch slices and place on ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 12 minutes until lightly golden. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

When cookies have cooled, melt chocolate morsels and shortening in a small saucepan until mixture is smooth. Dip half of each cookie into chocolate. Set on waxed paper to set.

 

Push in your thumb and pull out a plum: a premium holiday thumbprint cookie

Posted on by
5

For as long as I can remember, Thumbprint Cookies have been my favorite holiday cookie treat. My paternal grandmother started the Thumbprint tradition. The cookies soon became a favorite of her little son Ronny (my dad.) So, of course, my mom had to learn how to make them and carry on the Thumbprint tradition. My mom’s been gone for many years, so the Thumbprint tradition was left to me. I’m certain the tradition will be carried on for generations. My daughter-in-law makes them now, too.

Our Thumbprint cookies are made of a rich, buttery dough that is rolled into a ball, coated with coconut and poked in the middle to make a bowl to hold creamy frosting — red and green, of course. Long ago, my grandma may have used her thumb to push a shallow indentation into each little ball of cookie dough, thus the name Thumbprints. Somewhere along the line, though, my mom began using the end of a wooden spoon for the job. It may have been because the thumb-pressing process doesn’t take place until the cookies have baked for 5 minutes. It makes for a very hot, steamy thumb. Ouch!  The end of a wooden spoon creates a space for frosting much too small for my taste. Over the years, I’ve started using the end of the handle on a small Swedish butter knife made of wood. It’s the only thing I ever do with that wooden tool. The rest of the year it stays tucked in a kitchen drawer. The end of that knife makes a large basin to hold lots of frosting. Perfect!

When I gathered with friends a few weeks ago to make Swedish Ginger Snaps, Judy, our host, pulled some holiday cookies from her freezer. At that time, she already had a good start on her Christmas cookie baking. They were not only beautiful, they were delicious. She was kind enough to share the recipes for two kinds of cookies that I wanted to add to my holiday baking list.

I’ve already tried one of the recipes Judy gave me. And, a couple of highly-regarded tasters have already decided these Chocolate Caramel Thumbprints will be granted a spot in our "Keep Forever" Christmas baking file.

Oh, I know they are a little bit putsy to make. But it’s that attention to detail that results in beautiful cookies, which is one of the requirements for any cookie that wants a spot on my Christmas cookie platter.

I’ve started to wonder how it happened that my grandma’s Thumbprint Cookies became a holiday tradition. Where did she get the recipe? Maybe one of her friends shared the recipe with her as they shared holiday treats with one another. Was it a tradition in that friend’s family? So, does that mean there could be other people out there using the exact same recipe at holiday time that my family has been using? I wonder.

Use your thumb or find something else that becomes the official tool for making Thumbprint Cookies. The bigger the indentation, the more caramel filling it will hold. Who knows? Chocolate Caramel Thumbprint Cookies may become one of your holiday traditions.

Enjoy!

Chocolate Caramel Thumbprint Cookies

  • 1/2 cup butter, room temperature
  • 2/3 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 2 tablespoons milk
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 cup all-purpose flour
  • 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 16 vanilla caramels, unwrapped
  • 3 tablespoons whipping cream
  • 1 1/4 cups finely chopped pecans
  • 1/2 cup semisweet chocolate morsels
  • 1 teaspoon shortening

In a large mixing bowl, beat butter with an electric mixer until creamy. Add sugar and beat well.

Separate egg, setting the egg white aside to use later. Beat in egg yolk, milk and vanilla. In another bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder and salt. Add flour mixture to butter mixture and beat until wll combined. Chill the cookie dough in plastic wrap for at least 2 hours.

In a small saucepan, heat and stir caramels and whipping cream over low heat until mixture is smooth. Set aside.

Shape the dough into 1-inch balls. Slightly beat reserved egg white with a couple of drops of cold water. Roll the dough balls in egg white and then in chopped pecans. Place 1 inch apart on a lightly greased or parchment-lined cookie sheet. Using your thumb, (I use the end of a wooden Swedish butter knife) make an indentation in center of each cookie.

Bake in a preheated 350-degree oven for abut 10 minutes, or until edges are firm. Remove from oven and spoon some melted caramel mixture into indentation of each cookie. Transfer cookies to wire rack to cool. (If necessary, reheat caramel mixture to keep it spoonable.)

In another saucepan, heat and stir chocolate morsels and shortening over low heat until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Let cool slightly. Transfer the chocolate mixture to a plastic zip-top bag. Close bag and cut a small hole in one corner. Drizzle cookies with chocolate mixture. Let cookies stand until chocolate is set. Makes 36 cookies.

Tips from the cook

  • These cookies can be stored in a tightly sealed container in the freezer for a month or two.
  • 1 (14-ounce) bag of caramels will be enough to make 3 batches of these cookies.

See the Thumprint Cookies that are a tradition in my family right here.