What’s higher than a night at house with buddies and cookies? Listed below are a number of photographs of our cookie swap, plus the profitable recipe…
What a ramification. I hosted my first cookie swap 14 years in the past, as a sleepy new mother (can you see child Toby in the second picture?), then once more for the previous couple years, and now for the fourth time. It’s at all times considered one of my favourite gatherings.
My buddy Leah ordered these customized picture cookies, which made us all snort. Brooklyn 9-9! The Warriors! Panda Dunks! Potato chips!
My buddy Zahra made do-it-yourself Oreos.
Dan Pelosi introduced his Italian cookies, in fact.
We drank wine and egg nog…
And mingled.
A cookie swap isn’t often a contest, however 14-year-old Toby likes to proclaim himself decide. “I didn’t attempt all of them,” he admitted to the group this 12 months. “I received full.” However he did style the lion’s share, and the much-agreed-upon winner was…
These unbelievable thumbprint cookies within the pink field, above. They have been extremely scrumptious — with tart ardour fruit and a tender cookie that tasted nearly like shortbread.
Author and beginner baker, Ruby Smith (proper, with Erika), was form sufficient to e-mail me her recipe the subsequent day:
Ardour Fruit Thumbprint Cookies
1 cup unsalted butter (softened)
2/3 cup (150 grams) sugar
2 egg yolks (room temp)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (you can too add a number of drops of almond extract, should you like)
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 1/3 cup (300 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (or thereabouts) ardour fruit curd (Ardour Fruit curd may be onerous to seek out. I purchase it at Kalustyan’s, and you can too order it on-line. You should use lemon curd, as an alternative; or any type of jam. I simply made them for my household with guava butter that my mother introduced again from a visit — scrumptious.)
Preheat the oven to 350 levels and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Utilizing a stand mixer (or hand mixer), beat the softened butter with the sugar for two minutes, or till nicely mixed. Add within the egg yolks, vanilla, and salt and beat till integrated. Combine within the flour. The dough will likely be a bit crumbly, however ought to stick collectively when pressed.
Roll into balls and use your thumb or the deal with of a wood spoon to make indents in every cookie. Spoon the curd into every cookie. Bake for 11-14 minutes. The cookies are finished once they look matte with none moist or shiny spots, however they need to nonetheless be fairly tender to the contact. They’ll set extra as they cool. Let cool utterly and luxuriate in.
Blurry picture however I nonetheless find it irresistible 🙂
What about you? Have you ever ever hosted a cookie celebration? Or one other sort of gathering you’d suggest? At all times take pleasure in listening to about get-togethers…
P.S. Final 12 months’s epic cookie swap, and the 12 months earlier than that (how cute is that sweater?).
(Movie photographs by Erika Veurink.)