Recipe: These thumbprints are a twist on a traditional favorite
Pomegranate jelly glistens in almond thumbprints.
(Photos: Debbie Arrington)
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When I’m lucky enough to have a good crop of pomegranates, I make pomegranate jelly.
What do you do with pomegranate jelly? Try it in thumbprints.
Besides the usual jelly things (such as on top of toast or to glaze meat), sweet-tart pomegranate jelly has a special asset during the holidays: Its beautiful red color.
In a traditional thumbprint cookie, pomegranate jelly glistens like ruby glass. It’s also a pretty and tasty touch to other filled cookies such as Valentine’s Day hearts.
The combination of pomegranate and almonds make these thumbprints very Central Californian, too. These are both tastes of our Valley.
Got pomegranates? Here’s my jelly recipe: https://sacdigsgardening.californialocal.com/article/11079-pomegranate-jelly-colors-the-season/
As for the thumbprints, use your first knuckle instead of your thumb to create a deeper well for the filling. While baking, that hole will get smaller as the cookie dough expands.
Warming the jelly makes it easier to spoon into those little holes.
Use a knuckle rather than thumb to indent the cookies
produces a deeper well for the jelly. The wells shrink
when the cookies are baked.
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Pomegranate-almond thumbprints
Makes 2 dozen cookies
Ingredients
¼ cup butter, softened
¼ cup shortening
¼ cup golden brown sugar, packed
2 eggs, separated
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 cup all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup almonds, finely chopped
¼ cup pomegranate jelly
Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
With a pastry blender or fork in a large bowl, blend together butter and shortening. Add brown sugar, egg yolks and vanilla.
Sift together flour and salt. Add flour mixture gradually to bowl, working it into the butter mixture to create a soft dough.
Roll dough into balls, 1 tablespoon of dough at a time. (Refrigerate dough if it gets too soft and sticky.) Balls will be a little over an inch wide in size.
Cover cookie sheet with parchment paper (optional). Otherwise, use an ungreased cookie sheet.
Pomegranate jelly glistens in these cookies, which also would
be good to bake for Valentine's Day.
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Beat egg whites lightly. Roll each ball in egg white, then in chopped almonds. Space balls about 2 inches apart on cookie sheet. With your knuckle, gently press down in center of each ball to create a well and flatten the cookie.
Bake at 350 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes. (Don’t bake too long; they’ll get hard!) Cookies will be lightly browned. Remove promptly from cookie sheet. Let cool.
Warm pomegranate jelly in microwave on MEDIUM for 10 to 15 seconds. Stir. Spoon about ½ teaspoon of jelly into each cookie. Let cool.
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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3
November still offers good weather for fall planting:
* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.
* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.
* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.
* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.
* Plant garlic and onions.
* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.
* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.
* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.
* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.
* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.
* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.
* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.
* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.
* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.
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