Sorry it’s been so long since my last post. Trust me, I’ve missed this blog more than you have.
Cookie season is approaching—yes, although it’s always a good time for cookies, there is a season for them, and it’s slightly shorter than pie season—which means my brain is working overtime on new ideas for scrumptious treats to bring to parties, offer up to family and friends, and use to make sure everyone’s New Year’s resolution to lose weight is well-deserved.
Round one: pistachio thumbprints. One of my all time favorite cookies to eat and to make, thumbprint cookies are fun and easy, and especially fun to make with little kids—I know I say a lot of things are easy, but really, these ones truly are. Simple butter cookies filled with jam, chocolate, or nutty filling of your choice… can’t really go wrong, can you?
For these, I started with a basic butter cookie recipe—butter, sugar, egg yolks, salt—and Frankensteined it by messing with the proportions and adding some vanilla and toasted, crushed pistachios. Voici les photos:
Whole pistachios—roast 'em at 375 for 8-10 minutes. Heaven!
Tip: Instead of chopping nuts, which can get really tedious really fast, put them between sheets of wax paper, get a rolling pin, and take out some aggression! Works every time. Just don’t go overboard, lest you end up with pistachio butter.
The Casino method never fails.
Mix the nuts in with the basic dough, roll into balls, press with your thumb, and—poof!—thumbprint cookies! Well, almost.
The indentations actually work a lot better if you flatten the cookies out a bit first, then make a shallower, wider dent. But just sticking your thumb right in a big pile o’ cookie dough is much more fun.
Now, for the good stuff. Thumbprint cookies, in case you didn’t know, are also a utilitarian cookie. You didn’t know cookies had political leanings? Well, they don’t, but they’re very useful for getting rid of half-used jars of jam, chocolate that’s about to go bad (sidenote: don’t believe the use by dates on chocolate—more on that later), and just about anything else you can turn into a cookie filling. I mean, really, who doesn’t have six jars of various flavors of jelly and preserves in their fridge? I have had at least four that I knew of. These cookies helped me get rid of an oldie but a goodie, apricot:
Apricot and pistachio are a fairly traditional pairing, but there's a reason for that. It's really freaking delicious.
Last, but not least, when I ran out of apricot, I used some of that ridiculously tasty fig jam from Hédiard I need to use up this month. Needless to say, if you put that stuff on a turd, it would taste good, but on a pistachio butter cookie? Um, yes please!
Tags: Apricot Jam, Cookie Experiments, Fig Jam, Pistachios, Thumbprint Cookies
