Cookies are one of my favorite things to make for loved ones, and my special fella's favorite are thumbprint cookies. He says they're little bites of happiness. So for this round I've made some special Thumbprint Cookies of Love because the only thing better than a love token for Valentines Day is a delicious love token . I hope you dig them.

Step 1: What You'll Need

Tools:
Stand Mixer with paddle or equivalent
Soft Spatula for bowl scraping
Hard spatula for gently lifting love cookies from sheet
Cookie Sheets
Cooling Rack
Sil-Pats optional, keep cookie sheet clean and better for the environment than foil or parchment

Ingredients:
1 cup / 2 Sticks Butter, room temperature
*2 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
**Vanilla Extract
1 tsp salt
2 cups all purpose flour
Your favorite Jam, I used Bonne Maman Raspberry

Ingredients Metric:
240g cup Butter, room temperature
*2 eggs
130g sugar
**Vanilla Extract
2.5ml tsp salt
240g all purpose flour
Your favorite Jam, I used Bonne Maman Raspberry

* For a more shortbread texture use egg yolks only.
**This amount varies, check out step 5 for more info.

Step 2: Gettin Hot in Here!

Preheat oven to 350°F / 177°C

Step 3: Creamy

Cream Butter, basically mix it till its soft and blended you may need to scrape the bowl a felt times to get a good blend.

Use the soft spatula to scrape the bowl and paddle for the next step.

Step 4: Sugar Me!

Add the sugar and mix till you get an even blend.

Again use the soft spatula to scrape the bowl and paddle for the next step.

Step 5: Vanilla Time!

Typically this recipe calls for 1tsp / 5ml but I've never liked rules, and vanilla extract is so tasty. I usually just pour some in till I'm happy my guess is that its about 3 tsp / 15 ml.

Mix the vanilla extract in well and get that spatula back out and scrape the bowl and paddle for the next step.

Step 6: One Egg, Two Egg

2 eggs, mix well, scrape bowl

Step 7: Flour and Salt

Mix the salt into the flour.

Add the flour & salt into the wet mixture and mix till combined.

Scrape the bowl and paddle leaving the dough in a lump for the next step.

Step 8: Chill Out

Put the dough in the fridge for at least 30 minutes and check in on the cat.

Step 9: Making the Love

Take the cold dough out of the fridge and form it into 1in / 2.5 cm balls

Press hearts into the dough.
Normally here you'd press the cookie with your thumb to make an indentation but for our special love I used my index finger.
I made sort of an X with my fingers. When one turned out wonky I rolled it back up into a ball and tried again.

Step 10: Jam On!

Heres the fun part, pour Jam into the heart mold you made.
I like to use a 1/4 tsp measuring spoon. I think a pastry bag, or other piping tool would work really well and probably be a bit cleaner in the end.

Step 11: Get Baked

Bake the cookies for 20 Min
When you check on the cookies, you want to see that the jam is bubbling. This is how you get the slightly chewy texture.

I have seen other recipes pre-bake the cookies then add the jam and use a higher temperature but I haven't been able to get that to work.