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Title: 1986 Winner: Almond Thumbprint Cookies
Yield: 60 Servings

Ingredients

  --------------------------------COOKIES-----------------------------------
      2 c  sifted all-purpose flour
    1/2 c  sugar
    1/4 ts salt
      1 c  butter
    3/4 c  grated unblanched almonds
      2 ts vanilla
 
  --------------------------------FROSTING----------------------------------
      6 tb butter
    1/3 c  half-and-half
    2/3 c  packed brown sugar
      2 c  confectioners' sugar
    1/2 ts vanilla
      1    chopped pistachio nuts
      1    for garnish

Instructions

Preparation time: 45 minutes Baking time: 16 minutes

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. For cookies, sift flour, sugar and
salt into bowl. Cut in 1 cup butter with pastry blender until mixture
resembles coarse crumbs. Blend in almonds and vanilla. Work mixture
with fingers until a ball of dough is formed. Then shape into 1-inch
balls.
2. Place balls on greased cookie sheets; make a depression in
center of each cookie. Bake about 8 minutes; remove from oven. Dent
again and bake about 8 minutes longer; cool.
3. For frosting, blend 6 tablespoons butter, half-and-half and brown
sugar in saucepan. Boil 2 minutes, stirring constantly; remove from
heat. Cool about 15 minutes, then stir in confectioners' sugar and
vanilla. Beat until smooth and thick.
4. Fill depressions in cookies with butterscotch frosting and
sprinkle frosting with nuts.
Winner Penney L. Haney of Kenosha described these cookies: "Oh, the
aroma! Dad knew his 'girls' had been baking as soon as he stepped in
the back door, brushing snowflakes from his coat. He warmed his hands
over the hot oven, slowly recovering feeling in his fingertips, numb
from stringing red, yellow, blue, green and white lights in the pines
in the yard. His chore and our special treat combined each year to
mark the beginning of our holiday preparations.
"While chatting to Mom about trying to locate the single,
burned-out bulb that had kept an entire strand out, he watched me,
his tiny daughter, with not so dexterous fingers, shaping dough into
big marbles. I had to kneel on a wooden chair to reach the table,
with Mom's brightly-colored apron wrapped around me nearly twice,
held together in back by a giant safety pin." from the Chicago
Tribune annual Food Guide Holiday Cookie Contest December 4, 1986

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