Recipe for Nutty Buttery Cookies with Jam

Sometimes called Bird's Nest cookies or Thumbprint cookies, these are pretty healthy, and only call for 1/4 cup of sugar (not super sweet, but really buttery, nutty, and satisfying)

Active Time: 25 minutes
Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients

1 cup butter (plus a little extra for the cookie sheet)

1/4 cup sugar (try rapadura, sucanat, maple sugar, or any other minimally processed sugar)

1 T vanilla

1/2 t sea salt

2 eggs (separated into yolks, and whites that you briefly beat with a fork to mix but not make any firmer)

2 cups flour (spelt makes the nuttiest, most buttery cookies)

3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts or pecans

1/4 cup thick jam (try plum, apricot, cherry, etc.)

Directions

Butter two cookie sheets. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
Cream butter and sugar. Add egg yolks, vanilla, and salt, then mix. Finally, mix in the flour. If you have a food processor, that works great for this and most cookies. If not, use a hand mixer, or a spoon if you really want to go low-tech and human-powered.
Make a small ball of dough, dip it in the egg whites, roll it in the chopped nuts, put it on the buttered cookie sheet, and make a depression in the ball that will hold a little bit of jam in it, spoon in a little jam. Repeat until all the dought is used up. Makes about 25-30 cookies.
Bake 18-22 minutes.