I am a firm (and I do mean firm) believer in quid pro quo, tit for tat, or to put it simply, bribery. It's always been a go-to tool for me in almost anything I do in life. Don't shake your head at me. It's what has made the world go round since the beginning of time! Be good, go to heaven...finish your dinner, get dessert...be extra sweet and keep your man's tummy full, get those new boots you've been drooling over...Wait, I'm getting carried away. My point is, if your want something nice, you have to give nice in advance. I think it's safe to say that Santa Claus plays by these same rules. So I plan on leaving him these tasty little treats to "persuade" him to leave me something extra special under the tree. Dare I say something shiny?
Don't preheat your oven yet because the dough needs an hour to chill.
In a stand mixer, add 2 sticks softened butter and 1 cup granulated sugar.
Beat on medium/high speed until fluffy.
Then add one large egg and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract.
Continue to beat on medium high speed until combined.
Turn off your stand mixer and scrape down the sides.
Turn mixer back on at low speed.
In a separate bowl, sift 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour and 1 teaspoon salt together.
Start flour mixture to butter mixture, slowly.
Once combined, turn off stand mixer. Wet your fingers to make grabbing the dough a bit easier. Scoop in all up and divide in half.
Form each half into a disk, wrap in saran wrap and chill for one hour in the refrigerator.
Preheat oven to 350 F.
Line two baking sheets with silt pats. Unwrap dough and begin tearing of a little over tablespoon size portions.
Roll into each portion into a ball in the palm of your hands and place on lined baking sheets.
Repeat until you've used all the dough. With a small measuring spoon (I used a 1/4 teaspoon), start to make indentations in each ball, flattening out the dough slightly as you do this.
This is what it should look like.
Once you've done this to all you cookies, fill them with your favorite jams or preserves. (I used strawberry, blackberry, and apricot.)
Only place about 1/4 teaspoon of jam into each indentation, or the jam will spill over while baking and your cookies will be ugly!
Bake at 350 F for 20 minutes, rotating your pans half way through the baking time to ensure they cook evenly.
Take out of the oven and place the baking sheets on wire racks to cool for about 10 minutes, then transfer the cookies to the wire racks to finish cooling.
Now, if Santa doesn't reciprocate with something very nice, make sure he only gets rice cakes next year.
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