1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 each egg, separated
1 cup flour
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/4 cup finely chopped nuts
1/4 cup raspberry jam
Directions
Preparation time: 20 minutes Chilling time: 1 hour Baking time: 15
to 18 minutes
1. Beat together butter and sugar in a mixer bowl. Add vanilla and
egg yolk. Mix well.
2. Mix flour and salt, add to butter mixture and mix well. Cover;
refrigerate at least 1 hour.
3. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Beat egg
white lightly in a small bowl. Put nuts in another small bowl. Dip
each ball into egg white, then roll in nuts. Put balls 1 inch apart
on ungreased cookie sheet. Press thumb in the center of each to make
an indentation.
4. Bake until light golden, 15 to 18 minutes. Cool on wire racks.
Fill indentation with a small amount of raspberry jam.
Faye Kuhn, of Earlville, Illinois, recalled growing up in the tough
times of the '40s: "Despite the lack of finances, no holiday was ever
ignored in our household. Christmas, however, held the highest of
honors. . . We all boarded the train and off to the city we would go.
We would arrive home loaded with 'Evening in Paris' cologne, mittens,
socks, handkerchiefs and coloring books bought at Kresge's and
Woolworth's. Mom would then visit the local A & P for turkey,
cranberries, sweet potatoes, fresh ground coffee, nuts, apple-recipes.htm">apples,
oranges and one pound of butter to baste ol' Tom with. However, there
was one thing my mother didn't do in those days and that was to bake
Christmas cookies, for neither time nor money allowed such a luxury."
But when her mother retired, she started baking Christmas cookies,
Kuhn recalls. The family wanted her to make the thumbprints, yet no
one knew the name or the recipe. "Mother put on her coat, crossed our
back yard and knocked on our neighbor's door. She returned somewhat
later, victorious, with recipe card in hand." from the Chicago
Tribune annual Food Guide Holiday Cookie Contest December 8, 1988
Servings: 24 servings
1988 1st Place: Fay Kuhn's Thumbprints Recipe brought to you by Recipe Ideas
Categories: Fruit; Nut
The History of Recipes
Written cooking instructions as a concept can be tracked far back into antiquity, in fact as far as early Egypt, and maybe further still. In practice though, mostly, these old cook books were just simple hieroglyphic or cunieform recipes for food preparation.
The truth of the matter is, the oldest recipe found, according to academics are a few ancient tablets in the Sumerian language which recount the preparation of bread which is then used to make a drink, quite possibly a form of beer as it is recorded as making those who drank it feel exhilarated. Moving on, we find two recipe books which were published in the fourteenth century ; a cookery book published under the title `Forme of Cury`, and another, similary named `Curye on Inglish`. Don`t be fooled by the titles though, these books have no connection with the indian curry that is served today, but rather descriptions of the types of food prepared by the cooks of the upper classes. Later, in the 15th century, people returning from the crusades brought back a variety of foods and herbs from the East, including basil and coriander. These new culinary innovations caused an outbreak in recipe books, the majority of which still exist in academic collections. During the following few centuries, the powerful and rich competed to serve up the most extravagent meals, and as a result the best cooks and their recipe collections were at a premium. Notwithstanding that, it wasn`t until the 1800s that cookery and cookery books became really popular. Mrs Beeton in the UK, and the equally well-known Fannie Farmer in the US, dedicated the best years of their lives to assembling, trying out, and recording recipes that were common in the better off homes of the day. Like it or not, the introduction of TV gave us TV cooks and the demand for the accompanying recipe books. Which brings us neatly to the present day and the invention of the internet, permitting us all to search through massive numbers of recipes just like those on sites such as the one you are reading now. |
We hope you enjoy this 1988 1st Place_ Fay Kuhn's Thumbprints recipe.
