Strawberry Jam Thumbprint Cookies

I made these for the first time for Christmas 2010 as I thought these looked very Christmassy. This was a favorite with my friends in Rochester so have made these several times last year. This recipe is inspired by Foodnetworks Kitchen.

What I needed:

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
• 2/3 cup sugar, and some extra for rolling the dough
• 1 egg 
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup strawberry jam

How I made them: 

• I preheated the oven to 350 degrees F
• Lined 2 baking sheets with parchment paper
• Whisked the flour and baking powder and salt in a bowl.
• In a separate bowl I mixed together the butter and sugar with a hand-held mixer until fluffy, say for about 3 to 4mins. Added the egg and vanilla until just mixed a little more.
• Gradually added the dry ingredients mixing just until just combined. I usually add the dry ingredients in 2 or 3 instalments.
• I eyeballed the dough into 1-inch balls or you can use an ice cream scoop and rolled it in granulated sugar.
• Put them about 2-inches apart on the prepared baking sheets, pressed my thumb into the center of each ball, about 1/2-inch deep.
• Filled each each thumbprint with about 1/2 teaspoon jam.
• Baked the cookies until the edges are golden for about 8-10 minutes.
• Transferred them to a cooking rack and served.

The cookies stayed fresh in an airtight container for up to 4 days.

Update (14th Dec 2012): This year to make the cookies more Christmassy I rolled the 1-inch balls of dough in green colored sugar. To add color to the sugar I just put a couple of drops of color to 3-4 tbs of sugar in an airtight container and shook it vigorously till the sugar changed color. I also rolled out some of the dough to about 1/4inch thickness and used a start-shaped cookie cutter to cut stars. Be sure to sprinkle some flour on the rolling surface as well on the cookie cutter,.. otherwise the dough will stick.