Recipe Time!~VEGAN Choco Cherry Thumbprint Cookies!

I made these cookies to bring as dessert for a dinner with my boyfriend's parents and sister. They were a hit! These deliciously brownie-like cookies are sure to elicit oohs and ahhs and mmmm's!

Ingredients:
-1 cup unbleached flour
-1/3 cup organic cocoa powder
-1/4 teaspoon sea salt
-1/4 tsp baking soda
-1/3 cup vegetable/canola/or peanut oil
-1/3 cup soy milk
-1 tsp vanilla extract
-1/2 tsp almond extract
-2/3 cup sugar
-6 tsp cherry conserves/preserves

What to do with it:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray cookie sheets lightly with cooking spray (I use olive oil in a can)
2. Mix together the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking soda.
3. In a large bowl mix all the wet ingredients (save the jam) as well as the sugar. Add your dry ingredients to your wet ingredients in batches and mix well.
4. Here comes the messy part. To get these cookies looking right you'll need to have damp hands when working with the dough. I used a small bowl of water to wet the palms of my hands when they needed it. Though once you get some dough stuck on there too it can get messy....but messy is fun right?
5. With your damp hands, roll about 1 tablespoon of dough into a ball and press the ball flat between your palms to make a disc (kind of like the spaceships in Ed Wood movies). You can use more dough for larger cookies (YUM!). Place spaceships, er, discs of dough onto your prepared cookie sheets, about a half inch apart. [Note: these cookies spread and rise]
6. Bake cookies for 5 minutes, then remove from the oven. Press your thumb into each cookie to make a small indent in the center. If the cookies are too hot, use the back of a measuring spoon.
7. Place 1/4 teaspoon of cherry conserve/preserves into each indentation of each cookie.
8. Bake the cookies for another 6 minutes. Remove cookies from oven and let sit for a few minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.

Enjoy your cookies with a tall glass of soy milk or share with a friend!

Makes 1 dozen-2 dozen cookies depending upon how big you make your spaceships.