Crunchy Peanut Butter and Cherry Thumbprints

This is a drop (or ball) cookie recipe that is very much associated with Christmas. The cookie is coated with crunchy nuts, and there’s a succulent candied cherry plunked in the middle.

Yield: 3 dozen

Active time: 20 minutes

Start to finish: 45 minutes

1¹/₂ teaspoons egg replacement powder, such as Ener-G

³/₄ cup firmly packed light brown sugar

¹/₂ cup (8 tablespoons) soy margarine, softened

1 cup smooth commercial peanut butter (not homemade or natural)

¹/₂ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 teaspoon baking soda

¹/₄ teaspoon salt

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup finely chopped roasted peanuts (not dry-roasted)

18 red or green candied cherries, halved

1. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.

2. Mix egg replacement powder with 2 tablespoons cold water, and set aside. Combine sugar, margarine, and peanut butter in a mixing bowl, and beat at low speed with an electric mixer to blend. Increase the speed to high, and beat for 3 to 4 minutes, or until light and fluffy. Beat in egg replacement mixture, vanilla, baking soda, and salt and beat for 1 minute. Slowly add flour to margarine mixture, and beat until soft dough forms.

3. Take scant 1-tablespoon portions of dough, and roll them into balls. Roll balls in chopped peanuts. Place balls 1¹/₂ inches apart on the baking sheets, and make a shallow depression with your index finger in the center of each ball. Insert 1 cherry half into each depression.

4. Bake cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, or until edges are brown. Cool cookies for 2 minutes on the baking sheets, and then transfer cookies to racks to cool completely.

Note: Keep cookies in an airtight container, layered between sheets of waxed paper or parchment, at room temperature for up to 5 days.

Variations:

Substitute commercial almond butter and chopped almonds for the peanut butter and peanuts.

Substitute a few chocolate chips for the cherries, and place them on the cookies prior to baking.

Omit cherries and top cookies with 1 teaspoon raspberry or strawberry jam once cooled.

George Washington Carver, an educator at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, was an avid promoter of peanuts as a replacement for the region’s cotton crop, which had been severely damaged by the boll weevil. In his 1916 Research Bulletin called How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing It for Human Consumption, he included three recipes for peanut cookies calling for crushed or chopped peanuts as an ingredient. It was not until the early 1920s that peanut butter is listed as an ingredient in the cookies.