Make Some Holiday Thumbprint Cookies (and Win a Sears Gift Card!)

Sears recently gave us a $200 gift card to buy something from one of their in-house brands, like Kenmore, Craftsman, or Land's End. Sears also offered to give away a $100 gift card to one of fabulous readers—read on to find out how to win!

One of my favorite Christmas cookies from my childhood is the thumbprint cookie—a rich butter cookie that's rolled in chopped walnuts and topped with a dollop of raspberry preserves. As a kid, I always loved to help my mom make them. My special job would be to make an indentation in each unbaked cookie with my thumb. We decided to thumbprint cookies this year, and we got to inaugurate our new Kenmore Elite stand mixer that we got from Sears.

A stand mixer is one of the things I've really wanted for quite some time, so I'm pretty excited about it. The Kenmore Elite mixer looks kind of like an Art Deco version of the comparable Kitchenaid Artisan mixer, and has pretty much all the same features, but with a more powerful 400-watt motor. It also mounts all the Kitchenaid mixer accessories, like a meat grinder and pasta roller, too. The kids love the neat little LED on the underside of the mixing arm that illuminates the contents of your mixing bowl. Really cool!

It's amazing how much having a great tool like this helps out in the kitchen, especially in the way it helps cut down on the mess. The kids have fun using it, too (with supervision, of course). In fact my eight-year-old son was using the thing like an old pro after a few minutes. Thanks, Sears, for helping out with our holiday baking!

Here's the recipe for the thumbprint cookies (makes 1 dozen):

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
• 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 1 egg, separated
• 1 cup all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 cup walnuts, finely chopped
• 2/3 cup raspberry or other fruit preserves

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350º and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Parchment paper, by the way, is my new baking secret. I'm not sure how I lived so long without using it.
2. Combine butter, sugar and the egg yolk in mixing bowl and cream together until light and fluffy.
3. Add flour, vanilla, and salt and mix until well combined.
4. With your hands, roll dough into 1-inch diameter balls and then roll in chopped walnuts and place on prepared baking sheet. Many recipes for thumbprint cookies call for coating the cookies in beaten eggwhites before rolling in the walnuts, but it's messy and honestly we couldn't tell the difference when we omitted them.
5. With your thumb, press down on each cookie to slightly flatten and create an indentation.
6. Put about a 1 teaspoon of preserves in the indentation of each cookie.
7. Bake for 12–15 minutes or until lightly browned. Let them cool for a few minutes on the baking sheet and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Win a $100 Sears Gift Card!

We're giving away a $100 Sears gift card to one lucky Marin Mommies reader. To enter to win, send an email to contests@marinmommies.com with "Sears" in the subject line by 11:59 pm PST on Tuesday, December 20. We'll choose a winner at random. See our complete giveaway rules here.