How to Make Jewel Cookies

This recipe, despite current publication in various books and magazines, is actually a very old recipe. This recipe is sometimes referred to as, "Thumbprint Cookies", but I have only always known them to be "Jewel Cookies". It goes quite a way back, and as a child our neighbor used to bring them over to us during the holidays in a little foil dish covered in aluminum foil, so good! As a parent I now must continue the tradition and wanted to pass it along to others. If you like jam or jelly and just like plain cookies in general, you may just fall for these. Although a holiday cookie, I have made these all throughout the year, they never get as old as the recipe!

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

Things You’ll Need:

• 1 & 1/2 cup of unsalted butter
• 1 cup of brown sugar
• 1 large eggs (seperated)
• 2 teaspoons of vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon of salt
• 2 & 2/3 cups of flour
• 1 cup of jam (your favorite flavor)

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Grease a large rectangular cookie sheet. In a large bowl, combine butter and brown sugar. Beat in egg yolks, vanilla and salt until the mixture forms a dough.
2. Shape/roll small pieces of dough into small round balls (around the size of a small Swedish meatball). Place each ball on the cookie sheet and with your thumb press a small crevice-like indentation into the middle of each ball.
3. Using a pastry brush, brush all the balls with the egg whites. With a small spoon, fill each indentation with the jam. Bake 8-10 minutes or until the cookies start to turn golden brown. Remove from oven, cool, serve.

Tips & Warnings

• If you have a small baby spoon you can use this to fill each cookie with the jam, the size of the spoon makes for an easier application of the jam.
• You can use any of your favorite flavor cookie dough that you desire.
• A quicker more easier variation of this is to buy ready made cookie dough, it cuts down alot on the prep time.
• Another variation of this recipe is to use peanut butter dough and instead of jam, fill the indentation with a Hershey's Kiss. The Kiss will not totally melt, will hold its shape, and it is absolutely delicious!
• The purpose of brushing the balls/cookies with the egg white is for presentation purposes, it is supposed to cause the cookie to have a shiny appearance, although I have tried this a few times and the cookie never was very shiny for me, I included it in this recipe anyway so that you can try it for yourself, maybe you can find a way to perfect it!
• Don't forget to separate your eggs before mixing the cookie dough!