Blackberry Lemon Redemption Cookies

First of all, these treats were named by my Hubs. I had wanted to call them Reincarnation Cookies or Resurrection Cookies, or even Recycled or Repurposed Cookies. Hmm... How 'bout Metamorphosis Cookies? His idea trumped them all for its sweetness, appropriateness, and positive once-bad-now-good swing.

You see these cookies are the final reward for my Blackberry Pâte de Fruit from last summer. I'd saved it, ate one or two sticky globs, but there wasn't much to be said for it. Except that it was a big fat fail. Disastrous, yet still edible. It was thick, gooey and crunchy (the sugar that it was rolled in had been absorbed but not dissolved), beyond jam but not quite candy. But still there was that incredibly intense blackberry flavor that I couldn't turn my back on. So there it sat in an airtight container in the fridge. In limbo.

Then Christmas time came along. Specifically, Christmas cookie time came along. When I started seeing recipes for thumbprint cookies, I knew I had to try making them with my blackberry goo. You see, I hate waste. And I'm on a severely tight budget. But I'm also really picky. I won't go into all the reasons why I rejected all other recipes and selected this one, but the lemon was one of the clinchers. Lemon and blackberry together. In a cookie. A lovely cookie, rising from the primordial blackberry ooze, whose long journey is now at a tasty end. Sigh.

Emeril's Raspberry Lemon Thumbprint Cookies

My Notes: Melted the blackberry "pâte de fail" in nuker for 30 seconds, stirred, another 30 seconds, stirred, cooled. Used lemon juice instead of the booze. Needed more than 1/4 cup of jam. I may have used too much per cookie. Have extra available just in case. Baked for 19 minutes (10 minutes, rotate, 9 minutes). Yielded 4 dozen + 2 (using my small cookie scoop).