First treat day of the year...

Jeff has been on vacation now for a little over two weeks and guess what today is? Yup, time for him to go back to work (oh it was a grouchy morning!). Being a Wednesday, we couldn't let him go in empty handed on the first Weekly Wednesday Treat Day of 2008!

We decided on these small Raspberry Almond Shortbread Thumbprint cookies so the co-workers could choose if they wanted a few or just one in case they have started watching what they eat as a new resolution. The dough for the little guys is simply butter, sugar, flour, salt and a little almond extract. The dough is not sticky at all, but to give it a chance to relax and help control spreading while being baked, it needs to be chilled before continuing.

Once the dough is nice and chilly, it is portioned out and rolled into 1" balls. You need a divot in the center of the dough to hold the jam, so you have a couple options to do this. As the name implies, you could just use your thumb to push the dough down and make the indent, but I like using the tapered end of our ice cream scoop (you could also use the end of a wooden spoon) as my thumb is a bit too big and ended up cracking the dough. We filled the indents with raspberry jam, but you could change up the flavor if you like. I found this to go much faster when I scooped the jam into a zip-loc bag and pipped it into the dough rather than measuring it out with a quarter teaspoon. Once they are baked and cooled, the cookies are drizzled with a sweet almond glaze made from confectioners' sugar, almond extract and just enough water to thin it out. The cookies are quite buttery, but not at all greasy... they are just sweet enough with the jam adding a striking and flavorful contrast to the pale two-bite gems.

Recipes
Raspberry Almond Shortbread Thumbprints