Di's Cookie Exchange: Swedish Vanilla Cookies

I don't know why Christmas is so inextricably tied to cookies. Why not another holiday? What is it about cookies that links them to Christmas? Of course they're sweets, but why are cookies such a big deal at Christmas? I suppose it boils down to the glut of sweets that accompany the lingering year and Christmastime especially. In my family, however, it's cookies, cookies, cookies . . . and then a few more cookies. When I was younger I used to beg to bake the Christmas cookies, and finally my mom let me. There was one catch:  the maid came on Wednesdays, so I had to do any and all baking on the Monday and Tuesday before the Wednesday before Christmas. Are you still with me? I eagerly took the bait, and usually right after I finished finals in middle school and high school I'd go straight into frenetic Christmas cookie baking. I'd bake cookies upon cookies upon cookies. The first year I was allowed to do the baking I chose all new recipes. Yup, so long boring and stodgy standby cookies, that year we had really awesome cookies like sugar cookie angels with pretzels for wings and a pastel mint for a head. There was just one problem:  all of these really cool, pretty cookies tasted like bland nothing. I learned an important lesson that first year I was allowed to do the Christmas cookie baking:  favorites are favorites for a reason, and it is generally a bad idea to toss tradition out the window.

I've mentioned before that thumbprints are the ne plus ultra of Christmas cookies in my family. In fact, I even tried to bake them that first year, the year I threw tradition out of the window. I searched high and low for the recipe in my mom's recipe file (aka "the black hole" -- recipes go in but they don't come out) to no avail. So, I found a recipe for thumbprints and gave it a whirl. My mom took one bite and practically spit the cookie out. She wanted to know what on earth recipe did I use, and I calmly explained my tedious search and empty handed results. She went to the recipe file and pulled out a recipe card with the words "Jeanny Garvey's Swedish Vanilla Cookies."  Oh my gawd. Seriously? These cookies have always, always, always been thumbprints in my family; how could I ever have known to look for the Swedish Vanilla Cookie recipe card?

I can be spacey, and I spend a lot of time lost in my own thoughts; however, I don't usually need to be told something twice. I've never forgotten that these are Swedish Vanilla Cookies, and I still make them every single year. They aren't fancy but they taste wonderful, and that's the most important part, don't you think? And, no, they don't taste as good at any other time of the year, either. The dough is incredibly rich, and a nice dollop of jam is essential to the success of these cookies. These cookies were filled with sour cherry jam, but I use strawberry, raspberry or blackberry jam, too. I'm quite partial to apricot jam in these cookies, and I suppose if you like marmalade the bitter tartness of the marmalade would be a wonderful foil to the buttery sweetness of the dough. It wouldn't be Christmas in my kitchen without these cookies, and now I get to share my family's favorite with you! A big, huge thank you to one of my favorite bloggers,  Di, for organizing this cookie exchange!

Jeanny Garvey's Swedish Vanilla Cookies
Published in Redbook December 1972 and copied on to a recipe card by my grandmother, MawMaw

Ingredients:

1 cup of butter, softened
(note: the recipe doesn't call for unsalted butter, so I usually use salted butter. If you use unsalted butter you might want to add a pinch of salt)
3/4 cup confectioners sugar
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/4 cup sifted flour
Jelly, jam, preserves of your choice

Cookies: Heat oven to 325 degrees. Work butter in a bowl until creamy. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. Add egg yolk and vanilla and beat well. Add sifted flour to butter mixture gradually and mix until smooth. Divide dough into small balls about 3/4-inch in diameter. Place balls about 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets. Flatten slightly with the fingers and make a depression in each with the thumb. Bake 10 minutes, pull cookies out of oven. Fill depressions with jam and return cookies to oven to bake for 3 to 5 minutes more. Pull cookies out of oven and allow cookies to rest on sheets for about 5 minutes. Cool on wire cake racks.