Cooking for LIFE, October 2018

Cooking for Life, Thumbprint Cookies

Thumb Print Cookies

Diego Aloy is from Miami, Florida. “I love cooking,” he says. “It’s my favorite thing to do in the whole world (besides video games and spending time with my family). I hope to one day become the best chef in the entire world.”

Ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

3 oz. cream cheese, room temperature

1 cup of sugar

1 egg yolk

2 tsp. vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

Your choice of jelly or fruit preserves

Directions:

In a large mixing bowl, add the cream cheese, butter, and sugar. Use an electric mixer to mix the ingredients together. Add the vanilla, egg, and flour into the bowl and mix together.

Cover the bowl in plastic wrap and let it chill in the freezer for 30 to 60 minutes. Put some parchment paper over your baking trays and preheat your oven to 350°F 5 minutes before your cookies are finished chilling. With the dough, make small 1-inch dough balls and place onto the trays. (You should put 4 dough balls on each row, 3 if they comes out too big.)

Take a cup of water and either dip your thumb or the back of a knife in it to make small dents in the center of the dough balls. After making the dents, you can use jelly or fruit preserves to fill up the dents. (Use a teaspoon to scoop the jelly/fruit preserves.) Bake for 10 minutes or until set and then let it cool for 15 minutes. Enjoy!

Makes about 24 to 28 cookies.