One hundred and One Cookies

My husband is an educator.  This is the last week of school before Christmas break.  This effects me because this is the week of parties and gifts.  This effects you because I'm going to share my secret recipe for thumb print cookies that are guaranteed to make everyone your best friend.

In all honesty, it's not my recipe, it's my mother-in-law's, but our cookies taste nothing alike so I feel like I can call it mine.

The Dough... 

Combine 3 sticks of softened butter, 1 cup sugar, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1/8 tsp salt and 3 egg yolks in a large bowl.  Add 4 cups of flour sifted (I mix in one cup at a time, it's easier that way).

Cover and refigerate for 1 hour.


While I was making cookie dough, Claire was doing this...

She and I have had runny noses this week and we ran out of  kleenex today so she decided to fill the empty box with an entire roll of toilet paper.  She's a problem solver for sure.


Back to Cookies...

After refigerating the dough, pre-heat the oven to 350 and then pull out every cookie sheet you own and get to work rolling the dough into small balls.  Place each ball on the cookie sheet and put your thumb print in the middle (hence the name).
 

Bake for 8-12 minutes until golden brown on the bottom.  When you are done you will have a counter full of these...

I put them on wax paper because it makes the next step easier to clean up.  Make sure they are completly cool before adding the icing or else you will have more icing on your counter than on your cookies.

The Icing...

The icing is a combination of confectioners sugar, water, vanilla extract and food color.  I don't have exact quantities but use a lot of the sugar, a smidge of extract and add the water a little at a time.  You want it to have a thicker consistency so that it stays in the little bowls made by your thumb.  I use a baby spoon to put the icing on the cookies because it can really get away from you and a super tiny spoon doesn't hold that much so it can't get too far.  When you are done you should have something that looks like this,

I wanted to do some that were a little fancy so I tried multi-colored.  I think they are fun.

I let the icing set overnight to make sure it dries.  Nothing worse than icing everywhere except where it's suposed to be.  This recipe makes a boat load of cookies so it is great to take to parties and a very inexpensive gift for co-workers.  The number depends on how big or small you make your balls but this time I made 101 cookies.

Tonight we have the (football) coaches party.  I'm not sure if I have to bring a dessert or not but I'm prepared nonetheless.