Homemade Cookies: Cream Cheese Thumbprint Cookies

This is the perfect time of year to make homemade cookies. The kids are out of school for the Christmas holidays, so you’ll have plenty of help in the kitchen for both making and eating all those treats. One of my favorite types of homemade cookies is the thumbprint cookie. Thumbprint cookies can be filled with chocolate, jam, or a thin icing. I like to use the icing version because I can tint the filling to match whatever holiday theme I’m using – pink and red for Valentine’s Day, pastel shades for Easter, patriotic colors for July Fourth, orange for Halloween and Thanksgiving, and red and green for Christmas. I wanted to serve some festive thumbprint cookies at my family party on December 24^th, so I called our local bakery to get a price. Their small cookies are fifty cents each! I decided I could make them a heck of a lot cheaper than that, so I did. The recipes for the cookies and for the filling are below.

Ingredients:

8-ounce block cream cheese

1 ½ sticks butter

1 cup powdered sugar

2 ¼ cups all purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla

½ cup chopped pecans

Instructions: Place cream cheese and butter in a large microwaveable mixing bowl and cook until cream cheese is very soft and butter is almost melted. Add powdered sugar, flour, baking soda, and vanilla. Mix well. Add nuts and stir just until pecans are evenly distributed. Work the ingredients until they form a soft dough. At first, it might seem like the dough is too dry, but as you work it more, you’ll find that it does, indeed, form a cookie dough.

Place cookie dough in fridge and chill until firm – for about one hour. Roll dough into one-inch balls and place on ungreased cookie sheet, about an inch apart. While loosely holding a ball with the thumb and forefinger of your left hand, make a hole in the cookie ball with your right forefinger. Doing it this way will help keep the cookie ball from breaking.

Bake cookies for 15 minutes at 325 degrees. To check for doneness, flip a cookie over. The bottom should be golden brown.

When cookies are done, allow them to cool before filling.

Filling for thumbprint cookies

Ingredients:

1 teaspoon butter

½ cup powdered sugar

About 2 teaspoons milk

A few drops food coloring

Instructions: Place butter in a cup and microwave until melted. Add powdered sugar and stir. Gradually add milk, while stirring, until a smooth icing forms. Tint with food coloring to desired color or shade.