Butter and Sugar Galore: Jam Filled Butter Cookies

Growing up I loved these sugar cookies that my grandma would make. They were big and sweet, and had a little thumbprint filled with jam right in the middle. I would nibble around the edge of the cookie closer and closer until I got to the delicious jammy part right at the end.

I tried to recreate those cookies this week, but they didn't come out quite the way I was expecting. Before being baked they were soft and round, like in the picture below, and I was expecting them to come out kind of the same, judging by the pictures on the recipe I found. But instead they came out flat and thin, like in the picture above. They still taste really good though--they're so buttery that they literally melt in your mouth.

They were also a little fragile though, they kept crumbling away if you tried to pick them up by the edges, so you had to kind of balance the cookie on your palm while nibbling at them. I solved that, however, by keeping them in the refrigerator--which was really an excellent decision I think, because they were still flaky and buttery, but much sturdier, and the central jam part tasted better cold. I think that the next time I make these though I'll try one whole egg instead of 2 egg yolks, and see if they come out a little less crumbly.

I had fully intended to do half strawberry and half grape cookies, but when I opened the jar of grape jelly it had lots of little white and green lumps, so I decided to chuck that, and stick with strawberry!! They are really easy to make though--with only a few ingredients, and the thumb-printing, jelly-squeezing part is kind of fun. I don't recommend telling people how much butter is in them though, you wouldn't want people to feel guilty about eating such delicious treats!

Jam Filled Butter Cookies

adapted from allrecipes.com

3/4 cup butter (either use salted butter, or add about 1/4 teaspoon salt if using unsalted butter)

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 egg yolks

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

1 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup fruit preserves/jam

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, egg yolks, and vanilla. Mix in the flour a little bit at a time (and the salt, if using) until a soft dough forms. Roll dough into one inch balls; if the dough is too soft to work with at first refrigerate it for 15 to 20 minutes. Place the balls two inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Use your thumb (or maybe a spoon, I tried that though, and the thumb worked way better) to make a well in the center of each cookie.

Fill a ziploc sandwich bag with the jam, and squeeze all the jam into one corner, making sure to let all the air out of the bag. Snip the very tip off the corner of the bag, and use the bag to pipe the jam into the well in the center of each cookie.

Bake for 8-10 minutes at 375 degrees or until the cookies are golden brown around the edges. Let them cool on the pan for several minutes before attempting to move them, they're very fragile! Remove them to wire racks to cool completely, then store refrigerated in an airtight container. Makes about 40 cookies.


Look, this one came out as a heart! Noel and I split it! Awww....

Tempera Painted Butter Cookies

So (for now) my five favorite things in life are:

(1) Noel
(2) pizza
(3) reading
(4) butter cookies
(5) chocolate

It's a bit embarrassing that 3 of my top 5 are food items, but hey, I can't lie, I like eating! And, I'm pretty sure I have perfected #4 on my list, so I have to share my new technique.

I've been making these cookies for years in various shapes and formats. I make bunnies and ducks at Easter, Christmas trees and stockings at Christmas, leaves in the fall, which I've talked about before, and for Valentines Day I always make hearts, which normally I frost and decorate like those candy hearts with little sayings on them. This time, however, I decided to experiment with the tempera technique that I used at Thanksgiving time last year, and it worked beautifully.

Before you bake them the cookies look a little odd, the tempera is thin and yellow-ish, and it seems like they won't turn out. But both times I've done it they've come out in bright jewel tone colors, and they're very festive looking. The tempera technique is also really a cinch to do. My one word of warning is that you need to make sure that whatever brush you use to apply the tempera doesn't lose its bristles easily. Last time I used some little kid water color type paintbrushes, and they kept losing bristles on the cookies. (And on a total sidenote, later I noticed that the brushes were made out of horsehair! Ack!!! So I checked all the cookies again, and threw away two that looked like they might've had a bit of a brush bristle on them, but I'd already given some away. Sorry to those of you who ate those...hope you weren't vegetarians...)

So anyway, this time I used a basting brush to brush the tempera on, and it went pretty quickly since I was doing hearts. I think it would be a little tricky to use a basting brush if you wanted to do more intricate cookies, but it might still work. What's brilliant about using tempera instead of frosting is that since you apply the tempera before baking there's no need to wait for cookies to cool before you frost them, or for frosting to harden before you can stack them. I rolled out, cut, painted, baked, and cooled them all, and had them in a container less than an hour after I started pre-heating the oven, which isn't bad for almost seven dozen cookies!

Because the tempera lends a bit of crustiness to the top of them they taste more like a shortbread cookie than a butter cookie, but I kind of like that, because I think you can taste the actual buttery, flaky cookie more than when you smother them in frosting and they become just another sweet treat. My valentine definitely likes them this way, that's for sure!

Egg Tempera
(makes enough to top about 40 two-inch cookies)

1 large egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon water
2 drops vanilla extract
3-5 drops food coloring

In a small bowl stir together the egg yolk, water, vanilla, and food coloring until it's all evenly colored and slightly fluffy. Brush a thin layer over the top of butter or sugar cookies, sprinkle with sugar, and bake as directed. The tempera doesn't expand a lot, so don't use it on cookies that rise substantially, it will just crack. Also make sure that you only put a very thin layer on the top of the cookies, if you get it too thick it'll run off the cookies while they're baking and smell eggy, which is just weird! Let the cookies cool for a minute or two after they come out of the oven, then stack and store them in an airtight container. I also wouldn't recommend the tempera technique if you're trying for pastel shades, because the egg yolk is so bright to begin with that you have to put quite a bit of food coloring to dilute the yellowness.

P.S. Before I get any comments from the peanut gallery...Noel is definitely staying in my top five! It's the cookies/pizza that might be negotiable!

Christmas Cookie Baking: The Saga Continues

Christmas cookie baking is a BIG deal for me! It really doesn't seem quite like the holiday season has fully arrived unless I'm on my feet for at least eight hours, frantically rolling and cutting and sugaring and cooling and frosting and....you get the picture. I blast Christmas music (probably much to the dismay of my neighbors now that I think about it) and bake and bake until the house is fragrant, I've 'sampled' enough dough to potentially give me salmonella, all my tupperwares are full, the tile grout is full of jimmies and sprinkles, and there is flour on literally about 90% of the surfaces in my kitchen.

I try at least one new recipe every year, but there are a few varieties that I always make: most notably the peanut butter kiss cookies and the butter cookies that I've blogged about before (and that are pictured above). But for me the most important are the gingerbread cookies. If it isn't Christmas till I've baked, it definitely isn't Christmas baking until I've made the gingerbread cookies. They're sweet and spicy, fragrant and toothsome, and, most importantly, adorable. I bake them just enough to where they're firm to the touch but still soft to the bite. Covered with a dusting of sugar, they're the perfect accompaniment to a tall glass of milk or a warm cup of cinnamon tea.

The genius thing about my baking this year is that for the first time I was able to make cookies using my new stand mixer. Normally the gingerbread is pretty hard to mix because the dough is too stiff for a hand mixer, which means a lot of elbow grease is involved. But (much to Noel's relief since it's usually his elbow grease) the stand mixer was completely up to the challenge. I mixed the dough up Friday, refrigerated it overnight, and Saturday rolled out about 90 beautiful gingerbread men and bears in no time at all.


Gingerbread Cookies
5 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon ginger
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup shortening
1 cup white granulated sugar
1 egg
1 cup molasses
2 tablespoons vinegar

In a medium bowl combine the flour and spices (first six ingredients) and set aside. In a large bowl (preferably of your stand mixer) cream the shortening and sugar together. Then beat in the egg, the molasses, and the vinegar, making sure to incorporate each thoroughly before adding the next. Once the the wet ingredients are well combined, add the flour slowly, beating well, until all flour is thoroughly combined into the dough. Scrape the dough onto some plastic wrap, shape into a log, and wrap tightly. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours, or for up to 2 days.

When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Roll out small portions of the dough on a well floured surface (keep the rest of the dough in the fridge while you're rolling so that it doesn't get too soft). Roll until about 1/8 inch thick--or up to almost 1/4 of an inch if you want softer cookies. Cut into the desired shapes, place the cookies at least an inch apart on a parchment lined baking sheet, and sprinkle with sugar. You can re-roll the scraps, just make sure to add a little bit of cold dough each time so that you're never re-rolling only scraps, because the dough will be too warm, and they'll roll out really thin.

Bake the cookies on the center rack of your oven for 6-7 minutes. The cookies will still be soft. Let them rest on the baking sheet for a minute or two to firm up, then carefully remove to a wire rack to continue cooling. They're delicious while they're still warm, but be careful--they're sort of deceptively cool on the outside and then molten in the middle! They will keep for about ten days in an airtight container. After a few days they may get a little dried out, but if you put a slice of bread or a slice of an apple into the container they will soften up again in a few hours.

Deliciously Addicting Butter Cookies

First of all, don't say I didn't warn you. Since I'm going to share the recipe I can testify that there is no crack/other addicting substance in them, but somehow, once I start eating them I just can't stop. But several other people had the same problem today, so I feel slightly less perturbed about my inability to refrain from eating them.

Anyway, this recipe comes from my grandma's sister Hazel, and is simple but fantastic. It only has six ingredients, so make sure to use the best--I like using organic sugar and unbleached flour and unsalted butter. Martha Stewart tells me that I should use local artisanal brands or quality imported butter, but I don't go quite that far.

My new best friend the kitchen-aid mixer mixed this up in about 4 minutes flat, then the dough has to refrigerate for at least an hour, then you roll it out, cut, and bake. They are quick-baking cookies (only six minutes a pan) so you have to either work fast to have a new pan rolled and cut before the last pan was done, or you're going to have to waste some oven heat. Which, if you live in somewhere other in Tucson, might not be such a big deal; but in my case I semi-frantically rolled and cut and brushed and sprinkled and baked, and got about 80 cookies done in 45 minutes or so, thus avoiding any smidgen of superfluous warmth.

Speaking of brushing and sprinkling--I tried a new method to decorate these, using an egg tempera instead of frosting, and it turned out quite well. But this post will be ridiculously long if I try to talk about both the cookies and the decorating method, so I'll save it for another post.

These cookies are basically a sugar cookie, but a little more buttery and a little less sugary (hence the "butter cookie" name). They're kind of a cross between shortbread and a soft sugar cookie. They melt in your mouth, and on their own aren't too sweet--what makes them sweet is the frosting or sugar that you top with them. I probably wouldn't recommend them plain, unless you're the type who prefers less sweet desserts. I roll them out in various thicknesses depending on my mood. For thin, crisp cookies roll out to a scant 1/8 inch. For thicker, softer cookies, go for closer to 1/4 of an inch.

These butter cookies are also quite possibly the most photogenic cookies ever. Whether they be glazed, frosted, or merely dusted with sugar, they're always cute. I make them seasonally whenever there's a definitive shape (ie snowmen and trees at Christmas, hearts at Valentine's Day, etc) to the holiday or season. This particular batch was a nice assortment of leaves and acorns, perfect for one last autumnal hurrah before the Christmas insanity.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Aunt Hazel's Butter Cookies

1 cup unsalted butter

1 cup sugar

1 unbeaten egg

2 tsp vanilla

1/4 tsp salt (only if using unsalted butter!)

2 2/3 cups flour

plus additional sugar for decorating, if so desired

Sift together the flour and salt, set aside. Cream together the sugar and butter for about three minutes, or until smooth and well-combined. Beat in the egg and then the vanilla. Add the flour/salt combination in half cup increments, beating well after each addition. Once all flour is absorbed, shape the dough into a ball, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Roll the dough on a well-floured surface to about 1/8 inch thick for thinner, crisper cookies, and 1/4 inch thick for thicker, softer cookies. Place cookies one inch apart on parchment-lined baking sheets, sprinkle with sugar or glaze if desired. Bake for 6-7 minutes, or until just firm. Carefully remove cookies from pan and place on wire racks to cool. (They'll still be a little pale and soft, but they'll harden as they cool, and in my opinion they don't taste as good if you bake them till they're golden-brown).

Alternately you can make drop cookies without refrigerating the dough for as long. After mixing the dough, refrigerate for about ten minutes, then drop by teaspoonful onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Using a fork dipped in water make a criss-cross pattern on the top of the cookies, flattening them as you do so. Sprinkle with sugar if desired, then bake as directed above.

Let rest on wire racks until completely cool, then frost if desired (and if you didn't previously sugar them). Makes about fifty regular sized cookies, I got eighty using half miniature cutters and half regular cutters. They'll keep for a week, or even ten days, in an air-tight container.

P.S. In the last picture the cookies are on one of a set of pretty nifty glass plates that my grandma got as wedding present fifty-one years and two days ago. Happy Anniversary Grandpa and Grandma!