Pecan Thumbprint Cookies

Our Turkey Red Flour is a natural pairing for toasted pecans in these delicate, melt-in-your-mouth cookies. Use your favorite jam or chocolate in the center for a simple yet elegant treat. This recipe was generously provided by the Simple Food Group of Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. 

Yield: 20-30 small cookies

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients

• 160 g (1 1/3 cups) Janie's Mill Turkey Red Flour
• 188 g (1 3/4 cups whole) pecans
• 130 g (2/3 cup) sugar
• 6 g (1 tsp) salt
• 140 g (10 tablespoons) unsalted butter, room temp, cubed

Instructions

1. In a 350F oven, toast the pecans for 8-10 minutes until fragrant and slightly darker in color.  
2. Whisk to combine the flour, sugar, and salt. 
3. Once cooled, put equal parts pecans and dry ingredients in a food processor and process in batches. A batch is finished when pecans are ground into the dry ingredients and the mixture has the texture of lightly dampened sand. Take care not to over-pulverize and create pecan butter. 
4. Combine processed pecans with whatever is remaining of dry ingredients.
5. Smear and smush butter cubes into the dries piece by piece, until there are no more streaks of butter.
6. Scoop dough into rounds a little smaller than a ping pong ball, about the size of an overfull tablespoon scoop.
7. Thumbprint the cookie dough balls so that there is decently sized well for holding jam, but without making the bottom of the cookie too thin. 
8. Chill the thumbprinted cookies for at least 30 minutes and up to a few days in the fridge. 
   
9. When ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350F. Gently fill each thumbprint with a spoonful of jam, until the thumbprint crater is full. 
10. Bake for 7 minutes, rotate the sheet pan, and then bake for another 7 minutes. The cookies are done when they have deep golden brown coloring around the outer bottom edge.
11. Let cool completely on a wire rack.