Peanut Butter and Jelly Thumbprints...

I guess it's time to let the proverbial cat out of the bag - Jeff was officially offered, and has subsequently accepted, a new position within the company and we will be relocating to... North Carolina!

Yeah, I heard those gasps - talk about criss-crossing the states! Back to the East Coast once again. While we still have to get our house sold (*grumble* to the housing market!), our plan is to be transitioned down into the Charlotte area no later than June. Crazy, but what's life without some adventure? At least that's what I'll keep telling myself. Between now and June, Jeff will start this new job March 1st, which means he (or we, depending on timing) will be going back and forth for possibly weeks at a time getting familiar with the office and the area. I'm unsure as of yet how exactly this will affect the blog, but we'll do our best to keep it updated with all these new happenings!

This will hamper the Weekly Wednesday Treat day for quite awhile (sorry co-workers!), but we still have 2 more planned. Which, speaking of, brings us to this week's treat - Peanut Butter and Jelly Thumbprints!

Peanut butter, of the creamy variety, was incorporated right with the butter, creating the beige dough for these cookies. I found it to be brilliant to work with - neither too dry nor too sticky, just the consistency you want for rolling into balls. After divvying the batch of dough into plump rounds, each was then jostled around in a shallow dish of sparkly granulated sugar to coat. Just over halfway through baking, the cookies are whisked out of the oven and boldly (but carefully as they are hot!) stabbed in the center to make room for the filling. The handle of a wooden spoon works well for this, as does a small melon baller - sure you could use your thumb as the name implies, but who wants to burn off their fingerprint?

The cookies will then need to go right back into the oven to finish baking through. Now, why not just wait until they are done? This way not only helps flatten and spread the cookies out slightly, but they are more malleable at this point and if you were to let them bake completely through, they will be too set, making them more brittle and harder to press that divot into each. You could make the hole before hand, but it will just fill in as they bake and you'd need to re-do it again anyway.

The options are endless as to what to dollop inside the cookie craters you made - as you can see, I used raspberry jam for half, but how could I resist spooning that hazelnut-rich Nutella into the rest? I couldn't!

Or, if you happen to be a fluffernutter fanatic, how about adding a scoop of the white billowy fluff right in the center? A note on the jam - right out the refrigerator it is fairly gelled and hard to work with - a zap in the microwave or in a small saucepan, set over low heat, will loosen the ruby fruit filling just enough to facilitated moving it into the cookies.

Recipes
Peanut Butter and Jelly Thumbprints