Thumbprint cookies! Or, as this recipe calls them, Rosenmunnar.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter (softened)
1/4 cup white sugar
1 cup sifted flour
(I got 33 one inch cookies out of this)

1) Combine sugar & butter…

…cream until fluffy.

2) Add flour…

…mix until dough forms (this takes a quite a few minutes…at first the “dough” becomes very crumbly, but eventually turns into a more solid dough).

3) Shape into small balls and press thumb into center.

4) After filling center depression with favorite jelly or preserves, bake at 375 for about 10 minutes (I take a spatula and slightly lift a cookie to see if it’s light brown on the bottom).

***Just a friendly tip***
Remove from oven and let cool on baking pan for about 5-7 minutes. If you try and remove them before they have cooled, they will crumble (speaking from experience…)

The girls had so much fun making these thumbprints. And one usually has all these ingredients on hand - it can’t get much easier than that!

These days, meals come in prepackaged boxes…everything from potatoes to cakes…just add water, perhaps an egg or two, and voila! - dinner is served. Our society is just go, go, go! Maybe it’s due to the fact that I live in the country, but I love baking from scratch. It’s less expensive, healthier (I know exactly what ingredients I’m putting into a dish…and can pronounce them for that matter), a great experience for the girls (educationally & emotionally…a wonderful chance to bond with my girls), and fun! If it can be done, I will do it - or at least attempt to :)  I didn’t have the luxury of having this taught to me. Instead, through trial and error, I learned how to bake from scratch just in the past year - it’s become very important to me that I pass this down to my daughters.

On Friday, Lilli and I made chocolate pudding from scratch. We used the “Hasty Chocolate Pudding” recipe from Allrecipes.com. Here it is in step by step instructions, with photos
Ingredients:

1 c. white sugar
2/3 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
6T. cornstarch
4c. milk
4t. vanilla

(note that T.= tablespoon and t.= teaspoon)

1. In a microwave safe bowl (this can be done over the stove as well but it would just take longer - see my “go, go, go” comment above…lol), whisk together the sugar, cocoa, & cornstarch. Whisk in milk a little at a time so the mixture does not have any dry lumps.

2. Place in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes on HIGH.

3. Stir. Then cook at 1 minute intervals, stirring between cooking times for 2 - 4 minutes, or until shiny and thick. Stir in vanilla.

3. Place a piece of plastic wrap directly on the surface of the pudding to prevent a skin from forming (the pudding will be HOT, so be careful!)

4. Chill in the fridge. Serve cold. Enjoy!

What do you like to pass down to your children?