Cream Cheese Lemon Thumb Print Cookies

I love making these for several reasons...one; the light lemony cookie and color fruit preserves look awesome plated up with the other peanut-buttery, chocolaty, gingerbready cookies...two; I LOVE CHEESECAKE and these are kind of like a little cheesecake cookie!...three; they are really fun to make (the dough freezes beautifully too!)
This year (and most years) I filled them with Raspberry and Apricot preserves, but they could be filled with any fruit preserve...when shopping for groceries for our holiday party I saw fig and cranberry preserves and would love to try either of those with these cookies (maybe next year!)...



Cream Cheese Lemon Thumb Print Cookies
Makes: between 6 & 6 1/2 dozen cookies

1 1/2 cups/ 3 sticks softened butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 8oz pkg softened, room temp cream cheese
2 eggs
2 1/2 T lemon juice
Zest of one lemon
4 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
Apricot and Raspberry preserves

Cream the sugar, butter and cream cheese in a large bowl until smooth. Beat in the eggs, and then fold in the lemon juice and lemon zest. In a large bowl sift the flour and baking powder together and slowly add to the cream cheese and lemon mixture until all is well combined. Cover & chill out in the fridge for at least an hour.
Pre-heat the oven to 350 and roll the dough into walnut sized balls, place 3 inches apart on a cookie sheet covered in foil & sprayed with non-stick spray. Use your thumb to make a crater for the preserves in the center of each cookie- spoon in about 1/2-1 tsp of preserves to each cookie. Bake 12-15 minutes or until cookies start to turn golden brown, let them cool 3-5 minutes on the cookie sheet before moving to wire racks to cool completely.