Yesterday there was no Day 4 of 12 Days of (vegan) Christmas cookies and here’s why- Procrastination failed me for the first time ever.

See, as I’ve mentioned before on this blog, Procrastination and I go way back, like Middle School days. I had to write a paper for DARE, waited until the night before and won an award. It was all down hill after that. Making an entire Civil War scrapbook for high school, complete with tea stained pages? Done the night before. Got an A++ (yeah, I was that girl). Final papers in college that were an obscene amount of my grade? Done the night before, hopped up on instant vanilla cappuccinos for the machine. Still got A’s and B’s.

All of these instances turned out great. So when I went to photograph pictures for the carrot cake cookies at the last moment because I didn’t get a chance to photograph them over the weekend, I totally thought I could make it work! Turns out, no natural light and a poorly lit apartment are more powerful than my relationship with procrastination. These are the pictures I got:

Gah! Bad. Is that corn in there? What is happening? Who would want to eat that?

So I have learned my lesson and will do my best not to procrastinate. And here are some lemon thumbprint cookies that look about a thousand times more edible than that cookie up there.

Lemon Thumbprint Cookies with Vanilla Blueberry Chia Jam
makes approximately 30 cookies

Jam:
from Oh She Glows

• 3 cups frozen blueberries
• 1/4 cup pure maple syrup, or to taste
• 2 tbsp chia seeds
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Cookies:
veganized from The Foodie Affair

• 1 cup (2 sticks) vegan butter, like Earth Balance, softened
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 2 Ener-G eggs (if you are making this non-vegan, The Foodie Affair used 2 egg yolks)
• 1 tablespoon lemon zest, grated
• 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
• ½ teaspoon kosher salt
• 2½ cups all-purpose flour

For the jam:

• Add frozen blueberries and maple syrup into a medium pot and bring to a simmer.
• After 5 minutes or so, stir in the chia seeds.
• Continue to cook down the mixture for about 15 minutes, or until thickened.
• Remove from heat and stir in vanilla.
• Chill in the fridge for a couple of hours to thicken it up even more.

You can serve it as is or if you want it smoother, mash it with a potato masher or use an immersion blender. I used an immersion blender as I don’t like chunky jam. Also, this recipe makes a lot so you will have leftovers. It is great on toast, ice cream, etc.

For the cookies:

• Pre heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
• With a mixer, beat Earth Balance and sugar together in a large bowl until well combined. Beat in Ener-G eggs, lemon zest, lemon juice, and salt.
• On low-speed, beat in flour just until large moist clumps form. You may need to use your hands at this point to form one large ball. (WV note: I did not have this problem which could be because I used vegan ingredients. I want to leave it in incase it does occur to your recipe or you are making this non-vegan)
• Roll tablespoons of dough into balls. Place balls on prepared baking sheets about 1 inch apart. Make a deep indentation in center of each ball.
• Fill the indentations with your blueberry jam.
• Bake cookies until firm and lightly golden on bottom, about 18 to 20 minutes.

Alternatively, you can wait to fill your cookies after you bake them. Just make your indentation as noted above and bake like that for 18-20 minutes. I preferred baking the jam in the cookie because I found that it helped thicken the jam further, keeping it on the cookie; that it provided a moisture cookie; and when the cookies are baked without the jam, the indentations kind of disappear a bit. But you can make them however you prefer.

These cookies are definitely an ode to my mom, who loves all things lemon. When I was making my cookie list, my initial list had 12 chocolate cookies with minor variations- chocolate and peanut butter, chocolate and mint, chocolate and chocolate… I realized that I wasn’t exactly providing a wide variety of options so I spiced things up a bit and made sure I included a cookie for the non-chocolate lovers.

Now, I’m thinking of pulling an all-nighter, College style, to complete my Christmas cards for tomorrows. Leave me your suggestions on your favorite holiday movies to get me in the spirit and keep me going through those long hours of gluing.

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