Lemon thumbprint cookies

One person I've been inspired by is my friend Suzie the Foodie, and she made some amazing looking thumbprint cookies a while ago. Nigel and I decided to try them out, and we can now report that they taste as good as they look!

I made the lemon curd for the filling, and it is delicious. It looks, and tastes, like sunshine in a jar, which is so lovely in the dismal depths of February in Canada.

The recipe is from Out of Old Nova Scotia Kitchens. This was quite easy to make, though it does require some knowledge that a beginning cook may not yet have.

First, you're going to need a double boiler, or a quick substitute like a glass or metal bowl that you can place on top of a pot with gently boiling water in it. You do not want the water to touch the bottom of the bowl.

Next, you need to know how to work with eggs in this situation. If you beat your eggs in a bowl and dump them into a hot bowl over water at a hard rolling boil, you're going to end up with scrambled eggs. I put six eggs into my makeshift double boiler while it was still cold, whisking away, and then turned on the heat. I slowly added the lemon zest and juice of 3 lemons, and 2 cups of sugar, while continuing to whisk away at the contents. When the water under my bowl heated up and started to boil, I kept the heat at medium and added half a cup of butter, stirring constantly.

You want this to thicken to the consistency of thick honey, so you don't want this to be runny. This is similar to a custard, but it doesn't have the milk or cream that a custard has. I also found that the thickening was similar to making custard in that it feels like you're going to stir and stir and stir and stir forever, never having it thicken, when all of a sudden it just does so for you over about 30 seconds or so.

We poured the lemon curd carefully into clean glass jars and left it to cool on the counter for a bit before putting it into the fridge to chill.

Now, for the cookies! I don't have the recipe handy that we used (Nigel looked up this one), but we made the cookies tonight. We baked them without the lemon curd in them, and here's how they looked.

We then mixed some lemon zest and lemon juice with half a cup of icing sugar to make a thick runny glaze, then drizzled the glaze over the cookies. Lastly we added a generous spoonful of curd to each indentation.

Don't these look heavenly? The tartness of the lemon curd and the crunchiness of the cookie and the sweetness of the glaze are perfect.

Oh, we also have a pile of leftover lemon curd, so this weekend, I think it's time to make lemon tarts.... What do you think?