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Vegan Jam Thumbprints

With nuts.


Without nuts. They look a little naked to me, but they were still delicious.


Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup butter, softened (we like Earth Balance buttery sticks)
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup canola oil
  • 2 vegan egg yolks (we like Ener-G egg replacer)
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup jam (preserves are ok, but watch out for chunks of fruit)
  • 3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts, optional
  • Yield: ~30 cookies

Beat the butter in a mixer until smooth. Add the sugar and cream until fluffy. This may take several minutes and several pauses to scrape the sides and beater. Add the oil, mixing until well combined.

Mix in the egg yolks and vanilla extract. Add 1 cup of the flour. Once that is mixed in, add the remaining 1/2 cup. Mix until the dough forms. Cover and chill for a couple of hours.

Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Preheat the oven to 375degF. Use a small cookie scoop (2 tsp capacity - or if, like me, you haven't got one, you use an actual teaspoon to measure out the correct amount of dough and hope they come out uniform) to spoon out the dough. Roll the dough into balls and place them on the cookie sheet 1 inch apart.

If you would like to use walnuts, once you've got a tray or two full of dough balls, pour ~1/4 cup non-dairy milk into a small bowl. Put the walnuts in another bowl. Dunk the dough balls into the milk and then coat with the nuts.

Now it's time to make the jam well. I know these cookies are called "thumbprints" and that implies you should be using your thumb to make the indentation. I don't like this method, though, because it makes wide, shallow indentations that disappear completely during the baking.

Instead, I take a half teaspoon measuring spoon, the kind that's a nice, round, half-bowl shape, and squash it into the dough balls. Be careful not to go all the way to the bottom. The jam wells still disappear a bit during the baking process, but at least you can see where they're supposed to be. Because the measuring spoon makes a smaller diameter well, the spreading isn't as bad. Also, they're uniform and i admit that is something i am a fan of.

Bake for 7-9 minutes. They should be taken out before the edges start to brown. While the cookies are still hot, take the half teaspoon and re-press those jam wells. After a few minutes, transfer the cookies to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Heat the jam in a small saucepan or microwave in a glass bowl/measuring cup (we're partial to seedless raspberry and apricot jams in the Supermega-household). You want the jam warm enough so that it's almost liquid, but not boiling hot. Carefully fill each jam well and allow to set. The jam will thicken as it cools and become harder to spoon neatly into the cookies. If that happens, just warm it up again.

By min | December 16, 2014, 7:40 PM | Vegan Vittles