Bella Vendetta’s Thumbprint Jam Cookies

I LOVE Christmas.  And not because I love Jesus or even because I love capitalism.  But I do love ritual and Christmas gives Me an excuse to delve into tradition and ritual and it’s even socially acceptable.

I can dress up with glitter and jewels and sparkly things and bake ridiculous amounts of cookies and decorate trees and put out lights everywhere…..these are a few of My favorite things!

My family are Italian immigrants and have brought a lot of traditions with them from the old country.  A lot of it is so lavish and time-consuming I can’t get involved BUT Italian Christmas cookies are something I am super passionate about.

I spent about a five-year chunk perfecting a few different recipes over the years and experimenting doing cookie swaps, giving away elaborate platters as gifts, and receiving feedback.  What I found is a lot of My American friends weren’t as crazy about Italian Christmas cookies as the people in My immediate family. A lot of Italian Christmas cookies involve almonds or nuts or fruit or both. I found My friends at parties didn’t know how to eat the struffoli (traditional tiny fried dough balls shaped like a wreathe and covered in honey glaze and sprinkles and nuts) Or the traditional little glazed and sprinkled cake-like cookies flavored with anise would get left on the trays.

 Americans really love their sugar.  SO I’ve had to take a few family recipes and tweak them a little bit to make them American party pleasers.

I am going to share with you a recipe for thumbprint jam cookies. 

One year, I showed up to a holiday cookie swap and tasting competition having sort of winged this recipe and was wearing some low cut, sparkly holiday dress, and ridiculous heels.  There were a lot of theater people and higher ed folks whispering and judging Me.  They had all spent years perfecting their recipes and taking this little country thing really seriously and I just sort of showed up with My tits and ended up winning the blind taste test.  I think I upset those nice country ladies.

WOW them with this really easy recipe that you can customize to your own taste:

You will need:

• 1 3/4 cup white flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• ¾ cups (1.5 sticks) of softened butter
• ½ cup sugar (I like to use a 50/50 mixture of pure cane finely ground and regular white sugar)
• 1 large egg (duck egg for extra bonus points and creaminess)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• Jam or jams of your choice for filling

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350

I like to grease My cookie sheets with Crisco. Straight up.  It’s the holidays, we’re cooking with butter and fats, no time to skimp.

In a large bowl combine your flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk or sift to avoid lumps.

In another bowl, cream your butter and sugar together (heh, yes Bella Vendetta is giving you instructions on how to cream)  Beat them together til pale and fluffy using a whisk or fork. Then incorporate your egg and vanilla.  When all your wet ingredients are mixed together nicely add in your dry ingredients. Use a silicone spatula if you have it and keep folding the batter over each other.  It will maybe look a little dry.  It’s almost like shortbread.

Scoop out little bits and make about one inch balls on the cookie sheets with a good amount of space in between them.  Gently. And I mean GENTLY use your thumb to make a little depression in the center of your cookie.  Pro tip: If you’re a fabulous femme like Me with ridiculously long nails you can use your knuckle to make the depression.  Fill that little depression with a small spoonful of jam of your choice!

Bake until just golden brown and remove from hot pan and place on a rack to cool.

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 It’s a pretty Americanized recipe.  If you’d like to make it the traditional Italian way, you can add almond extract and roll the cookies in crushed almond or pistachio before placing the jam.

The traditional Italian filling is fig or apricot, but I also like raspberry or orange/ginger.

I usually try to do a few different jams with different colors so they look nice on a plate together.

I’m telling you, inviting Me to holiday parties is a real joy, I wear lowcut outfits and come with homemade cookie trays.

This year I’ll be spreading cheer in the form of cookie trays left on loved one's front porches and naked pictures of Me wrapped in Christmas lights mailed out to fans.

If anyone ends up making this recipe, please take pictures of your cookies and send them to Me and I will give you a free month to My onlyfans!

Bella Vendetta is an award-winning adult performer and producer living in Western Massachusetts. She is a BDSM community leader, sex educator, writer, and fine art photographer in addition to doing filthy things on camera.

Find her:

twitter.com/BellaVendetta

onlyfans.com/bellavendetta

BellaVendetta.AVNstars.com

patreon.com/bellavendettafineart

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