raspberry thumbprint cookies

raspberry thumbprint cookies

• 24 Oct 2012

As promised, now that I'm back home in Sydney I've returned to the kitchen to do some baking. The latest issue of Gourmet Traveller was waiting for me when I returned and one of the features was by Mike McEnearney of Kitchen by Mike fame.



I photographed Kitchen by Mike a few months ago but was too busy snapping to try any of the food. I scanned through the featured recipes in the magazine and decided to make a version of Mike's Marmalade and almond jammy dodgers. I don't know if it's a typo because the recipe doesn't include almonds at all but uses hazelnut meal instead. I don't like marmalade, so I thought raspberry jam would be the perfect pairing with the hazelnut cookie.



I made the dough in my food processor and as I was meeting a friend for an early brunch, I left the dough in the fridge for a few hours before I baked the cookies. The dough is very soft so I think refrigerating it was a good option anyway.



The original recipe suggests filling the baked cookies with the jam, but I wanted to bake the jam a little to set the filling. Once I made the indents in the cookie dough, I filled the holes with the jam then returned the cookies to the oven to bake until they were golden.



Do you like my new little pot? I bought it from the Canvas Chelsea store when I was in New York last week. It was the last one left in the shop, so we had to take it out of the window display.



I decided to taste test the cookies before taking them into work to share them with my work mates. They were absolutely delicious so now I'm wondering whether I should be selfish and keep them all to myself.

Here's the recipe for you.
Raspberry Thumb Print Cookies printable recipe
(adapted from a recipe for Marmalade and almond jammy dodgers by Mike Mc Enearney, Australian Gourmet Traveller October 2012) - makes 16

Ingredients
125 gm softened butter
50 gm (½ cup) pure icing sugar, sifted plus extra to serve
½ tsp vanilla extract
110 gm (¾ cup) plain flour plus extra for dusting
45 gm cornflour
35 gm (⅓ cup) hazelnut meal
Raspberry jam

Preheat oven to 180º C/350º F. Line 2 oven trays with baking paper.

Beat butter and sugar in an electric mixture until light and fluffy, add vanilla and beat to combine. Stir in the flours, then the hazelnut meal. Roll into walnut size balls (20 gm) between floured palms, leaving space for biscuits to spread. Flatten the biscuit with your palm and bake for 5 minutes.

Press your thumb into the centre of each biscuit to form an indent and bake until golden (10-15 minutes). Cool on tray, spoon jam into each indent then dust with icing sugar and serve.

Changes I made.
· The original recipe was made using home made Seville orange marmalade. I don’t like marmalade so I used raspberry jam instead.
· Once the dough was made, I refrigerated it for a few hours as it’s very soft.
· I baked the dough for 7 minutes and made the indent in the cookie with the handle of a wooden spoon, then spooned a teaspoon of the jam into the indent.
· I returned the jam filled cookies to the oven and baked until they were golden, another 15 minutes in my oven.
· Once the cookies were cooled, I shielded the jam with a teaspoon before dusting the cookies with icing sugar because I thought they looked better that way.
· I had one with a cup of tea and it was seriously yummy! The cookies are best served the day they're made but they're still delicious the following day.

Meanwhile, I'm thinking of doing another week of Christmas treats like I did last year. If you have a recipe you'd like me to bake, style and photograph for the blog please email a copy of the recipe to me, including the source of your recipe. My email address is located at the top of the blog and in the 'about me' section of the blog. I'm sorry not to provide a link in the text but that's apparently how I get targetted by spammers. They're unrelenting.

I'm really looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

Bye for now,

Jillian