A Blast from the Past

I have lived in Knoxville my entire life, except for a brief stint in Greenville, SC, for a year of college. As a kid, my very favorite cookie was the thumbprint cookies made and sold at Wade's Bakery and Fountain City Bakery in town. They were delicate little cookies with shiny, sweet, colorful glaze on top that was perfectly set and very delicious. These bakeries have long since gone out of business and those perfect little thumbprint cookies have been very hard to find over the years. But I recently found a recipe on Comfy in the Kitchen for these little gems and couldn't wait to bake them today. My first batch wasn't very good - a bit dry for my taste. So I added a bit of heavy cream to the remaining dough and the rest of the cookies turned out delicious.

Thumbprint cookies
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 c. margarine or butter
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour

Frosting
1 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 TBS Karo Syrup
1/8 cup water
Food coloring of your choice... you can also use sprinkles!

For frosting - mix all ingredients together in a bowl until smooth, then add 1 drop of food coloring. You can divide the frosting into several bowls to make more than one color.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Cream together butter and powdered sugar and vanilla then gradually add flour.  If the dough is too crumbly, you can add 1-4 tsp. of milk.  Roll dough into 1/2 inch balls and place 2 inches apart on cookie sheet.  With your thumb, make imprint in the center of each cookie. Bake on parchment paper for about 10 minutes (do not over bake).  Once the cookies are cool, fill each cookie with about 1 tsp or more of frosting and add sprinkles, is desired. Let frosting set for about 30 minutes.

These cookies would make BEAUTIFUL Easter treats, especially if frosted with a variety of pastel colors!