Welcome to Day 2 of
The Twelve Days of Cookies!
From December 1-12th I’ll post a new cookie (or holiday treat) recipe every day – inspiration for your holiday entertaining or cookie exchanges!
The recipes I’m sharing are small batch (each recipe makes 1-dozen) that are simple to prepare and that use everyday ingredients and equipment (hint, a small loaf tin and electric hand beaters are your friends!) so hopefully you’ll be able to whip up any of these on a whim.
For today’s recipe, I went way back to a childhood favourite – both for eating and making – jam drops (aka “thumbprint cookies” if you’re not from Australia!). I remember making these with mum when i was little and my favourite part (apart from the eating) was pressing my thumb into the middle of the soft cookie dough to make room for the spoonful of jam. These cookies are so pretty, especially if you use different jams – they have always kind of reminded me of Christmas baubles…
When I came back to this recipe after many years of not making it, I figured it would be easy but it took me a few tries to get it right (including making them with my aftercare crew at school a couple of times!).
The dough is a soft dough but it hardens quickly if you leave it before you roll and/ or press your thumb in which makes for “cracky” cookies which is fine but not maybe the look you are after so I made it a number of times to make sure I could figure out how to avoid that. In the picture above some of those cracks led to rivers of jam on the baking tray – not a catastrophe but also not ideal!
This is another easy recipe using only a handful of ingredients and simple equipment that is so easy the kids can make this on their own. Just make sure they follow the instructions for the quantity of jam to use – they will think it’s too little but in reality, it’s just enough to fill those indentations without overflowing. And hey, use the best quality butter you can – with so few ingredients, it will really make a difference!
Jam Drops/ Thumbprint Cookies
Easy jam drop/ thumbprint cookies.
Ingredients
- 57g (1/2 stick/ 4 tablespoons) salted butter, room temperature
- 50g (1/4 cup) granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 large egg yolk
- 112g (3/4 cup) all purpose flour
- assorted jams
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350˚F. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.
- Beat the butter using elctric hand beaters on high speed until it's light and fluffy, approximately 2-3 minutes.
- Add the sugar and continue to beat on high speed until the mixture is creamy and pale.
- Add the vanilla and egg yolk and mix on low speed until just combined.
- Add the flour and continue to mix on low speed until the flour is just mixed in.
- Divide the dough into 12 equal portions and roll each portion into a round ball. If the dough feels a little dry or like it's not rolling smoothly, hold the dough in your hand for a few seconds until it starts to warm up, then roll it immediately.
- Place each ball on the baking tray and use your thumb to make a small indentation in the top of each cookie.
- Place a 1/2 teaspoon of jam (no more!) into the centre of each cookie.
- Bake for 15-77 minutes until the cookies are lightly golden.
- Remove from the oven and place on wire cooling racks until the jam is cool (around 30 minutes - don't try to eat these right our of the oven as they will be very hot!).
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Aren’t they pretty? Perfect for your holiday table (or, really, anytime!).
Check out the rest of the:
The Twelve Days of Cookies
Day 1: Easy Three Ingredient Shortbread
Day 2: Jam Drops
Day 3: Chocolate Caramel Slice
Day 4: Melting Moments
Day 5: White Christmas
Day 6: Langues de Chat
Day 7: Chocolate Coconut Slice
Day 8: Cornflake Biscuits
Day 9: Rocky Road
Day 10: Honey Joys
Day 11: Rum Ball Truffles
Day 12: Giant Florentine Cookie (to share)
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These reminded me of the “traditional” Peak Freans Fruit Crème biscuits.
Well, without the crème. 😉
Lovely bites, and dangerously more-ish!
(As evidenced by my office, which tore through one of the “test batches” with alarming speed.
I remember these well … as Mr Neil, very more(ish) so happily, they are quite small.
And, they disappear quickly.
Nothing like a good jam cookie for the holidays.