Heading to a holiday cookie swap this year? Whip up a batch of these jam thumbprint cookies. Theyre fruity and richand our recipe makes four dozen of these crowd-pleasing sweets. But if you think that sounds like a lot, just bring them to a holiday party and watch how quickly they disappear.
One of the fastest methods for piping jam onto our thumbprint cookies (remember, youre making 48 cookies) is using a zipper-lock bag. To do this, place the jam in a small zipper-lock bag and zip the top, taking care to remove all the excess air from the bag. Then, when youre ready to pipe, cut the corner of the bag to make a small hole, about inch in diameter, and squeeze the jam into the thumbprints. Weve found that its the easiest way to leave your mark on these cookies.
MAKING JAM THUMBPRINTS
1. Cream the butter and sugar: Creaming the softened butter and sugar together with an electric mixer makes a light, delicately textured cookie with a rich, buttery flavor.
2. Add cream cheese for texture: Adding cream cheese to our cookie dough makes it sturdy while keeping it light and cakey, a perfect foil for the dense, sweet center of jam.
3. Roll the cookie dough into balls: Rolling the dough into proper balls, rather than just spooning the dough onto the baking sheet, keeps the dough from spreading during baking.
4. Make a first impression: Using a wet thumb (to prevent sticking), make a small indentation in the center of the dough balls. Dont worry if your thumbprint isnt perfect, the cookies will be re-indented after baking for 10 minutes.
5. Make a second impression: After baking the cookies for 10 minutes, the original thumbprint will be somewhat faint. To avoid burning our thumbs, we use the underside of a rounded teaspoon measure to re-indent the original thumbprint.
6. Jam it up: After reestablishing the thumbprints, fill them with teaspoon of jam and return the baking sheets to the oven to finish baking. Using a small zipper-lock bag as a piping bag makes filling all 48 cookies a snap.
Find this and other great recipes in The Americas Test Kitchen Family Baking Book.
1. After rolling the dough in an 18 by 9-inch rectangle, spread a 1-inch-wide strip of the filling about 1 inch above the bottom edge of the dough.
2. Loosen the dough from the counter with a bench scraper (or metal spatula) and carefully roll the dough into an even cylinder. Pinch the seam to seal.
3. Transfer the dough log to a parchment-lined baking sheet and shape into a ring. Make about 11 cuts around the outside of the ring using scissors, spacing them 1 to 1 12 inches apart.
4. Twist each piece of dough cut side up.
1. Gently stretch the dough into two even logs. Using a dough scraper (or knife), divide the dough into evenly sized pieces.
2. Drag the dough in small circles over a clean counter using a cupped hand, until the dough feels firm and round. It should feel like the dough is spinning underneath you but not turning over.
3. Use the palm of your hand to flatten each roll into a -inch-thick circle.
4. With a floured rolling pin, gently flatten out the center of each dough circle, leaving the edges thick. This should push the dough into an oval shape with a depressed middle.
5. Lightly brush the dough with melted butter, then fold in half and gently press the dough together at the edges to seal.
1. Halve the pears from stem to blossom end and then remove the core using a melon baller for a clean look.
2. After removing the core, use the edge of the melon baller to scrape away the interior stem of the pear, from the core to the stem.
1. Slice each halved poached pear crosswise into -inch- thick slices, then discard the first 4 slices from the narrow end. Do not separate the slices but pat them dry with paper towels.
2. Slide a thin spatula under one of the sliced pear halves and gently lay it in the center of the tart.
3. Working with the remaining pear halves one at a time, slide the spatula under each pear and press on the slices to fan them towards the narrow end.
4. Lay the fanned pear halves attractively around the tart, with the narrow ends pointed towards the pear in the center.
1. Drop spoonfuls of the chocolate randomly over the top of the batter.
2. Using a butter knife or small offset spatula, swirl the chocolate into the cheesecake batter.
Once your cheesecake is baked and cooled, you definitely dont want to risk messing up the gorgeous swirls youve painstakingly created. For neat slices, its helpful to clean the knife with hot water before slicing each pieceyou can do this at the sink or in a pitcher of hot water if youre cutting the cheesecake at the tableand wipe the knife dry before slicing. This prevents the cheesecake filling from sticking to the knife, which can make for quite a mess as you try to slice your third or fourth piece of cake.