Thumbprint Cookies with apricot, strawberry and blackberry centers. A Thumbprint Cookie by any other name ... is still a thumbprint cookie. In 1948, these were called Jelly Centers. OK, so that is also descriptive. The dough for these cookies is firm and can be rolled into little balls immediately, although it does ask for 2 hours of chilling. The recipe calls for a 3-to-1 flour-to-butter ratio, and the equivalent of an egg (actually, two yolks) per cup of flour. Compared to the floppier doughs I've been mixing, this has a higher solid to liquid ratio. The egg yolks add richness to the recipe. After baking two batches on different days, I did not get the baking time just right. They got a bit overcooked when I turned off the oven after 15 minutes and left them in to evaporate the butter that bubbled at the edges. Then, after chilling the dough a couple of days, 10-12 minutes of baking was not enough; the dough inside remained uncooked and, well, doughy. Maybe if I'd fo...
I began this blog when my mother was ill and needed enough of my attention that I could not concentrate on longer-form works I wanted to write. I set those aside to distract myself with cookie-making and this blog. Please find my new blog (2020) entitled "Time NOT Lost" at karenbrattesani.blogspot.com, where I explore the behavior I see around me -- both my own and that of others -- and what it says about our changing culture during the coronavirus pandemic. And, I hope, beyond.