Christmas Baking Countdown

It is only 16 days until Christmas and holiday baking and candy making has started in my house here in Oregon. I made my list and checked it twice for all my family’s favorite recipes.  Now that I live in the Pacific Northwest and have picked and enjoyed some of its local flavors I have added them to some of my baking this holiday.  In the next few weeks I will share with you some of my holiday recipes and you will see some flavors of Oregon added to old family recipes.

Thumbprint Cookies – 3 ways

Original Thumbprints
1 cup shortening
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, separated
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups Bob’s Red Mill white flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups walnuts, finely chopped
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Mix shortening, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla together.  In small bowl blend together the flour and salt and then stir in to shortening mixture.  Roll dough into 1-inch balls.  In small bowl beat the egg whites slightly with a fork.  Dip balls into egg white then roll in the nuts.  Place about 1-inch apart on a cookie sheet.  Press thumb gently into the center of each.  Bake 10-12 minutes or until lightly brown.    Cool and fill with Icing.

Icing
1 cup confectioners sugar
2 tablespoon milk
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
food coloring
In small bowl whisk all the icing ingredients together and spoon into the center of each cookie.

Pacific Northwest Thumbprint
In the cookie recipe above use hazelnuts instead of the walnuts.  With the icing add an additional 1/4 to 1/2 cup of confectioners sugar and 3 tablespoon of marionberry jelly that has been slightly melted in the microwave.  Add to the center of each cooled cookie.  This makes a beautiful purple color icing.

Turtle Thumbprints
In the cookie recipe above use pecans instead of walnuts.  In a small bowl melt 13 caramels and 2 tablespoons of milk in microwave about 1 minute.  Stir until smooth.  Add to the center of each cooled cookie.  Melt some chocolate wafers and drizzle over the cookie and caramel.