Eggnog Thumbprints

I don't like eggnog, but I love these tasty little cookies. This is another cookie that I make every year at Christmastime.

I have a previous blog post about thumbprints. These are very similar to my regular thumbprints. I have a recipe for these thumbprints, but this year, I improvised a bit. I made a HUGE batch of my regular thumbprint dough. I made jam thumbprints rolled in walnuts. I made thumbprints with chocolate icing, some rolled in walnuts, some rolled in sprinkles. I also made thumbprints with white icing. Again, some were rolled in walnuts and some in sprinkles. I had some extra dough after making all those different varieties. I thought that maybe I could just use my regular dough and just add some nutmeg to it. After all, my eggnog thumbprint recipe is pretty much just a generic thumbprint cookie with nutmeg in it. So, I grated some fresh nutmeg and dumped it in. I rolled them in walnuts and baked them. They smelled wonderful. I love nutmeg, so of course I thought that they smelled wonderful. I made the rum infused icing for the top, sprinkled on a little more nutmeg, and they were perfect! This is a great example of how easily you can change things up in the kitchen when you are baking. Work with what you have! But always make sure that you have fresh nutmeg!

Fresh nutmeg is one of those things that I always have in my pantry. It makes a huge difference in flavor in my opinion. It is not terribly expensive, and it lasts quite a long time. When you buy fresh nutmeg, what you are actually buying is the seed of the nutmeg tree. Interestingly, both nutmeg and mace are derived from the same tree. To use fresh nutmeg, you just need a microplane grater. There is absolutely no need to buy a fancy nutmeg grater. A microplane does the job just fine. It is a great multitasker to pick up if you don't have one.