I was reading an article written by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall about the invasion of American coffee shops in Britain and how it’s changing the consumers’ behaviour. “Supersized decorated cookies” and “enormous cartoon cupcakes” are taking the place of good old bickies but they’re like a well-dressed, handsome but dumb boy: easy on the eyes but very disappointing in comforting.

With that in mind I remembered that I hadn’t posted anything yet from one of my favourite blogs, Technicolor Kitchen. I used to make these biscuits a long time ago but I lost the recipe when I decided to transfer all my recipes to the computer. Not that I didn’t make backup cds, I surely did! Lots of them. The problem was that I used a programme to edit the recipes that was simply discontinued (PageMaker) and the copies I had wouldn’t work in the more modern system versions. Of course it was my fault: I knew it was going to be discontinued and yet I kept postponing migrating my recipes to a more reliable format, like .txt. Damage was done, so let’s move on and find another biscuit recipe. And that’s how I found Patricia’s Chocolate Thumbprints. I have adapted it slightly because I prefer my thumbprints with jam but they are delicious and very easy to make anyway.

JAM THUMBPRINT BISCUITS
(makes about 35 biscuits)

INGREDIENTS

115g unsalted butter, softened
½ cup (70g) confectioners’ sugar, sifted
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 ¼ cups (175g) all-purpose flour, sifted
about 6 tbsp jam (I made some with guava and some with apricot jam)

METHOD

Preheat oven to 180ºC and line two baking trays with parchment.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the 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, until a dough forms – it won’t be sticky.
Roll dough by teaspoonfuls into balls, and place them 2cm apart onto prepared tins. Bake for 10 minutes, remove from oven, press thumb into tops of biscuits to make indentations and fill them with a bit of jam. Return to oven, and bake until light brown on the edges, 7 to 9 minutes more. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

NOTES: It’s best to use the back of a measuring teaspoon or the end of a wooden spoon to make the indentations so that you don’t burn your thumbs 🙂