Wednesday's Whimsical Word: Egg

This is not something I usually post on my blog but I wanted to share a recipe. I made this recipe three times just before Christmas and LOVED it. Although it's not a healthy recipe by any means, it is really good, and easy because it has a few simple ingredients. And the presentation is fantastic.

Jam Filled Butter Cookies (recipe courtesy of allrecipes.com)

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 egg yolks
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup fruit preserves, any flavor

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. In a medium bowl, cream together the butter, white sugar and egg yolks. Mix in flour a little bit at a time until a soft dough forms. Roll dough into 1 inch balls. If dough is too soft, refrigerate for 15 to 20 minutes. Place balls 2 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheets. Use your finger or an instrument of similar size to make a well in the center of each cookie. Fill the hole with 1/2 teaspoon of preserves.
3. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes in the preheated oven, until golden brown on the bottom. Remove from cookie sheets to cool on wire racks.

That's the recipe as it was on allrecipes.com but I also added 1/2 tsp vanilla extract. If you like almond extract it would probably be good with a little of that instead. And instead of jam I used some pink grapefruit jelly. I loved the color and flavor this gave the cookies. Anything citrus is likely to be a hit for me, especially grapefruit. But I'm sure these cookies would be great with any kind of jam or jelly.

Let me know if you make them and what you think. I honestly couldn't stop eating them. Next time I make them it will have to be when I am planning to take cookies to someone so that there will be less of them around for me to eat. But I would love an excuse to make them again so if you want a plateful of these little gems, let me know and I'll whip up a batch. Really!

And just for fun I thought I'd add some pictures.

Here are the cookies rolled into balls before I filled them with jelly. I pressed holes in them with a clean chapstick lid dipped in flour. I put the jelly in a plastic bag and cut the corner off to make it easy to put jelly in the centers. And here is the finished product. it's hard to tell when they're done you have to look for slight browning around the bottom edges. These literally melt in your mouth.

Once they're cooled, I dust them with powdered sugar. But that's more for presentation than taste. They taste just as good without it. Enjoy!