Here's a couple thumbprint cookies that are tried & true. Imake them every year. Chocolate Caramel Treasures Cookie type: formed These are another variation of thumbprint cookie. This recipe came from Gourmet Magazine, December 1999. Ingredients For the cookies: 1 stick unsalted butter, softened 2/3 cup sugar 1 egg yolk 1 teas vanilla 1 cup flour 2 tbsp whole milk 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder 1/4 teas salt 1 egg white, lightly beaten 1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts For the filling: 10 (1 x 1/2 inch) plain caramels, 2 tbsp heavy cream For the drizzle: 3 oz semisweet chocolate, finely chopped Directions For the cookies: Beat together butter, yolk, milk, sugar, and vanilla until well blended. Sift in flour, cocoa, and salt and mix until mixture forms a dough. Chill, wrapped in plastic wrap, until firm, at least 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll tablespoons of dough into balls, then coat with egg white, and roll in nuts. Place balls 1 1/2 inches apart on a greased baking sheets. Press your thumb into center of the balls to flatten, leaving a depression. Bake until puffed slightly but centers are still soft, 10-12 minutes. Remove from oven and immediately press centers of cookies again with a spoon. Let cool. Make the filling while cookies are cooling. Heat caramels and cream in a small sauce pan over low heat, stirring occasionally, until melted and mixture is smooth. Spoon into centers of cookies and cool completely. Make chocolate drizzle one hour before serving. Melt chocolate in a double boiler or a metal bowl set over a pan of barely simmering water, stirring until smooth. Cool to warm and pour into a heavy-duty sealable plastic bag. Seal bag and snip 1 corner to form a small hole. Drizzle chocolate over cookies and let stand until set, about 30 minutes. *I never bother with the drizzle. I also usually use walnuts and not hazelnuts. ***************** Austrian Jam Cookies Cookie type: formed My mom originally got the recipe out of a magazine years ago. I don’t know what magazine. These cookies nowadays go by the name thumb print cookies. I like to call them Austrian Jam cookies because they sound more sophisticated that way. I usually double the batch. A single batch will make about 15-18 cookies. A double batch, you will get closer to 3 dozen. Ingredients 1/2 cup butter (1 stick), softened (not melted) 1/2 cup sugar 1 teas vanilla* 1 egg, separated 1 1/4 cup sifted flour 2/3 cup chopped almonds** your favorite flavor of jam Directions Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Beat butter, sugar, vanilla and egg yolk in a medium bowl until fluffy. Stir in flour. Gather dough into a ball, cover and chill for several hours. Roll level teaspoonful of dough into balls. Dip the ball into a slightly beaten egg white. Roll the ball into the almonds. Place on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Space cookies 1 inch apart. These cookies will not spread very much. Press an indentation with your thumb in the middle of the cookie, careful not to go all the way through to the pan. Fill with jam. Bake at 300 degrees for 20 minutes. *Almond extract can be used in place of real vanilla. ** Generally, I think the almonds are a little too hard for the rest of the cookie. I usually use walnuts or pecans. I like using Polaners preserves for the jam centers. I have also used Smuckers as well as homemade jam.

It's really a question of being outnumbered and in a poor defensive position. You're in your kitchen. The scallops are searing on one burner, the miso-mirin sauce is reducing on another, shao mai is steaming on a third, and you've just slipped the fish under the broiler. Suddenly, over your shoulder, you see three hulking, menacing, shadowy figures enter your kitchen. Your chest tightens and your blood freezes with fear. They come closer. You're trapped in the corner. One is brandishing something menacing. They leer. Another one moves to grab you. It's auntie Miriam and her deadly fruitcake, cousin Rose ''The Huggy One'', and the muscle behind them is in-law What's-His-Face. You wave your wooden spoon, distract them with desperate words, twist and dart, but you can't leave your food. The fish starts smoking, the sauce goes solid, and the scallops are turning to rubber. You shriek. ''My baby! Don't hurt my baby!''. Too late. Rose pins you down, Miriam forces fruitcake in your hands, and you hear, as if in a nightmare, Whats-His-Face intone, ''I think something's burning. Can I help?'' What you needed was time, and help. If you could have taken shelter behind an island, or a timely flambe. Or retreated into a narrow aisle where they were unable to surround you. That would have bought you time to send your telepathic Bat-signal. The Caped Crusader would have dropped into that grim tableau, dispensed cocktails and light patter from his Bat-belt, and ushered Auntie Miriam, Rose, and their henchman to jail, where they'd be forced to nibble at the crudités platter until dinner. I have a bit of a defensive table. More important, I have SWMBO, who even wears a cape sometimes, and was apparently born to socialize. She gets me out of some tight spots. Unless she is distracted and leaves me defenseless. The other problem is that sometimes she becomes my tormentor, getting in my way as badly as any guest. It is jolting, like Batman showing his dark side. But I guess that hint of darkness is what makes him sexy - that and the codpiece. Are Miriam and Rose and their helpful hands ever welcome? Never. By the time the guests arrive, I've done all the chopping, slicing, and mixing. Or should have done. The only reason an onion is being diced at the cooking stage rather than already being in a little glass prep bowl, is because I forgot. Which which case, I need that onion diced right [deleted] NOW! not to run around finding Miriam a cutting board, a little bitty knife, a towel, her reading glasses, lotion for her hands, and cement to reattach her hairpiece that was dislodged by my swearing. Absent those embarrassing lapses, I'm going to be cooking, not prepping, when guests arrive. About that cooking. Naturally, anything that can be cooked ahead, already has been. There's no need for help making the soup, or assembling the salad, or chilling the custard. That all got done hours ago. We'll be down to stuff that is time-sensitive. When the scallops are seared, it wants to be served right away, not after it's cooled to rubber. Ditto the fish, before its cold and limp, the shao mai, before its dry and stiff. So I dont have time for help, and won't have a chance for a do-over. So, even if I had the room, I wouldn't want help. There are exceptions. For SWMBO's birthday dinner I made way too many dishes, had two portable burners set up because I was out of range burners, and 30 minutes before dinner I was, as they say, ''dans la merde''. I asked my friend to help out by making the hollandaise. He is a good cook, knew exactly what to do, zero instructions. That was a lifesaver. But for the most part, when the thugs - sorry, guests - arrive, I am at the crucial stage of something I've been working on for 3 to 4 hours. I am hot, sweating, my leg hurts, I've already messed something up, I may be drunk. All I want is for one low-maintenance friend, maybe I.M. or Mrs. M or Dr C.K., to accept a pour of scotch and chat for a bit, maybe hang out, over there and not over here. I know, it sounds misanthropic, and it is. Cooking for dinner parties is definitely not one big happy family affair, here. Maybe if my kitchen was bigger than everyone else's master bathroom, I'd be less of a grouch.

Love real English fruitcake - not cake with icky fruit in it. We get Assumption Abbey fruitcake every year. It's the real deal: When Assumption Abbey was first developing its bakery, the monks sought the help of world class chef Jean-Pierre Aug, who at one time served in the royal employ of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Mr. Aug's assistance, and his generosity in providing the recipe and ideas for production, gave the monks the impetus to go forward with the Assumption Abbey Fruitcakes. Assumption Abbey Fruitcakes are the dark, rich, traditional style of fruitcake. They are baked slowly and aged under the careful supervision of the monks. Everything, from marinating the fruit, to mixing, to baking, to packaging, to aging, to mailing is done right at the Monastery by the monks. Here is a link that might be useful: Assumption Abbey fruitcake

This link is Beatrice Bakery company. I think of it as Grandma's fruitcake company because they make some REALLY GOOD fruit cake and it used to be called that. That's Coming from a person who doesn't like fruitcake, except this companys'. They have SEVERAL to pick from. I buy some for my MIL every year and get some samples for me. Watch the video if you have time. This place is 25 miles from my house too. http://www.beatricebakery.com/