I just recently made my favorite jam thumbprint cookie recipe and scarfed them down in record time, I’m ashamed to say. So, I was looking forward to trying my hand at Dorie’s recipe for these Buttery Jam Cookies selected by Heather of Randomosity and the Girl. How could you go wrong…butter = yum, jam = yum in my taste equation primer. And yet, I guess my palate isn’t that refined because I just didn’t care for these as written in the book.
I baked the first half of the dough according to Dorie, but after being somewhat disappointed by the flavor I decided to make some alterations with the second half of the dough.
Dorie’s cookies lacked in jam flavor in my humble opinion. I’m not sure why, maybe due to some sort of brain damage that creates certain flavor expectations when I hear the word “jam”, but I was disappointed because I imagined some kind of magic cookie with swirls of jam creating a marbleized masterpiece of jam goodness. This cookie just didn’t have it. Not only that, but the ginger TOTALLY overpowered any other flavor for me. While I don’t mind the spice, I’m not exactly holding up pom-poms for ginger.
Now, before anyone jumps down my throat – this is just my personal tastes here. As I began this diatribe, maybe I don’t have the refined palate for this cookie. Not only that, I think there may be something wrong with my sinuses hence affecting how I taste things. For example, I ate my daily salad with my favorite dressing, loved it – and I mean LOVED it, exuding all the “mmm, mmm” noises while consuming, then the next day it tasted kind of blech and I was wondering if some evil little troll ran into my fridge and switched out my dressing on me. The moral of this story is – don’t always trust my tastebuds, or at least lately – they’re acting funky. Something to do with the weather…and sinuses….I think, but I digress.
Now I’m sure some of you out there may be interested in the changes I made in the second half of the dough. There was really only one change to be made with the finished dough – add more jam! So I made thumbprints filling the wells with red, glossy little puddles of raspberry jam. This aided the failing jam flavor creating a more tasty cookie in my humble, most likely handicapped opinion.
I’m sure if you’re a ginger freak these cookies will be right up your alley. However, in my case I’ll stick to my old jam thumbprint recipe. (Someday I’ll get around to doing a post on that.)
Last edited on January 24, 2009
