"You cannot help but learn more as you take the world into your hands. Take it up reverently, for it is an old piece of clay, with millions of thumbprints on it."
John Updike
I couldn't possibly estimate how many cookie recipes I've amassed over the years. Among the books, magazines, inserts, clippings, and cards I also find recipes developed in the food labs of companies that needed people like me to buy their ingredients during the holidays, or their annual sales numbers would be in the tank.
At Christmas, everyone who eats cookies here has their favorite. It is serious business to cull the list down to the chosen few each year, and this year is no exception.
I've tried a lot of different kinds of cookies. One year, in Pleasant Hill, California, I tried so many recipes, I had about 20 dozen cookies too many. It was almost butter by the case around there.
I sent around a flyer/party invitation, ostensibly from my little girls, inviting the neighborhood to an "After Christmas Cookie Sale." "Everything must go." The kids were invited to come in their pajamas.
Everybody showed up. I don't know if that proved that nobody doesn't like a cookie, but it's my only real research to date on the matter.
After they ate all the cookies they could hold, they also got a plate of them to take home. I still had cookies left over.
As in all other things related to the kitchen, Martha has served up some seriously outstanding cookies over the years. One of her cookies showed up briefly at the Cookie Sale. That would be, of course, the Chocolate Thumbprints that she debuted in 1994. A single recipe yields just two dozen cookies; but, because this recipe had a couple of fierce devotees in the household, I had doubled it.
I've always liked Thumbprint anything cookies. There's something homely and comforting about their little round shape, cracked differently each time, with some sweet, pretty, or just downright decadent concoction spooned into the space left behind by somebody's thumb. At the walnut company, of course, we refined the traditional butter cookie rolled in finely chopped walnuts, then filled with raspberry jam. That's where I got my career start in the World of Thumbprints. Thankfully, it didn't end there.
Turns out, you can put just about anything you want into that thumbprint to make it your own. I have other Martha recipes with cream cheese-based fillings, and one that is really more like a tiny croissant than a cookie, with a savory cheese and sausage filling.
Yum.
Martha's been busy with Thumbprints. I think she's more like me than she could possibly imagine. Because, in her December issue this year, she published another Chocolate Thumbprint recipe. She also named it "Chocolate Thumbprints." I was thinking -- hey, not only do I already have that recipe, I can make it in my sleep. Does she have so many recipes that even she cannot remember when she has already done something??
Wrong. It's just a different Chocolate Thumbprint. Just when I thought life couldn't be better, she launched one that is a chocolate cookie ("with a brownie-like texture"), filled with a slightly more complicated, but nevertheless attainable chocolate ganache filling.
So, now the quandry begins. Abandon the used, 1994 Chocolate Thumbprint for the sleek, tempting 2008 edition? Stick with tradition, thumbs down to the new?? Eschew double chocolate??? (Is that possible.) Make both????
I don't know yet, but I'm leaning toward a recipe of the Chocolate Thumbprints and half a recipe of the Chocolate Thumbprints.
CRD Notes:
(1) The original "Original" recipe gave the instructions for using the end of a wooden spoon instead of a thumb to make the indentation. Yep, it's not as homely and comforting-looking, but it makes a more uniform cookie and a deeper indentation for the filling without breaking the cookie on the bottom. If your thumbs are living large, you might want to consider the spoon handle method.
(2) Either way you make the indentations, the filling goes in neater if you use a baby spoon. The small, narrow type for babies just starting solid foods, not the wider, fatter spoon for toddlers. Also, be patient with the filling. Just because Thumbprints are homely and comforting doesn't mean they want to look sloppy when they take their rightful place of honor on the cookie plate.
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
2 teaspoons coarse salt
8 ounces (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/3 cups sugar, plus more for rolling
2 large egg yolks
2 tablespoons heavy cream
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Chocolate and Vanilla-Bean Ganache
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift flour, cocoa powder, and salt into a small bowl. Cream butter and sugar with a mixer until pale and fluffy. Reduce speed to medium, and add yolks, cream, and vanilla. Scrape sides of bowl. Beat in flour mixture until just combined.
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
4 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons light corn syrup
Directions:
Heat oven to 350 degrees. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together 1 stick butter, sugar, salt, and vanilla on medium-high speed until smooth, about 2 minutes. Beat in flour, beginning on low speed and increasing to medium high.
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