How to make Delicious Thumbprint Cookies? (Perfect Holiday Treat)

• Food: Thumbprint Cookies
• Writer: Nicolas Wilson
• Content-Type: Food Blog

The best holiday treat is these thumbprint cookies! They are melt-in-your-mouth scrumptious and filled with colorful pools of apricot and raspberry jam.

Seasonal baking for the holidays! These jam thumbprint cookies are the ideal way to start it off, in my opinion. I’m prejudiced, of course, but I believe this to be the best thumbprint cookie recipe available.

The cookies have a warm, buttery flavor and a delightful melt-in-your-mouth feel. They have a flash of brightness from the melty jam and are creamy and delicate.

They’re also quite simple to make, which is a benefit! There are only 8 ingredients needed to make these thumbprint cookies, and odds are strong that you already have all of them.

Ingredients for a thumbprint cookie recipe

All set to bake? Make sure you have the following ingredients in your cupboard before you continue:

• Almond flour and all-purpose flour together produce exceptionally rich and soft cookies.
• Butter: It gives the cookies a delicious crumbly texture and provides a rich, buttery flavor.
• For sweetness, use sugar.
• Almond and vanilla extract give the cookies a toasty flavor.
• Don’t forget the sea salt, either! Even though these cookies are sweet, the salt is crucial for enhancing their mouthwatering butter flavor.
• Jam: Pick your favorite flavor or combine several. I adore using apricot and raspberry jam to make my thumbprint cookies.

In a medium bowl, combine the flour and salt and whisk to combine. Then, using the paddle attachment on a stand mixer, beat the butter, sugar, vanilla, and almond extract until frothy. Flour should be added gradually and mixed after that.

Shape the cookies next. To scoop rounded teaspoons of dough and form them into balls, use a 1-tablespoon cookie scoop. Put the balls on two sizable parchment-lined baking sheets.

Make an indentation in the center of each cookie using the back of a 1-teaspoon measuring spoon. Finally, insert a small amount of jam into the dents.

The bottoms of the cookies should be gently browned after baking in a 350° oven for one sheet at a time.

When they come out of the oven, they’ll be very delicate, so let them sit for five minutes on the baking sheet before moving them to a wire rack to cool fully.

Best Advice for Thumbprint Cookies

• Be prepared. You must prepare the butter in advance because this recipe calls for room-temperature butter. A few hours before you begin baking, take the butter out of the freezer or refrigerator. A few hours, indeed. Don’t try to hasten the microwave procedure. If you do, the butter can start to melt and the cookies might spread. I speak from experience, so believe me!
• Put away your thumb. Maybe it’s just me, but every time I press my thumb into one of these cookies, I get strange-looking indentations. I prefer to press them down with the back of a 1-teaspoon measuring spoon to obtain even indentations that can hold a substantial amount of jam. It produces nicer, more uniformly filled biscuits by forming a large, rounded cavity for the jam.
• Consider the cookie-to-jam ratio. Thumbprint cookies with just a tiny bit of jam inside are the saddest thing ever! The size of the cookies and the quantity of jam are important factors when calculating the jam: cookie ratio. I make these cookies very little, using about a tablespoon of dough for each cookie. I then add a half teaspoon of jam to them. In this manner, there is the sufficient jam for the quantity of dough. Yum!

Thumbprint Cookies

The holidays are the ideal time to make these simple thumbprint cookies! You are welcome to use any type of jam in place of the apricot and raspberry that I prefer to use while making these.

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled
• 1 cup almond flour, spooned and leveled
• ½ teaspoon sea salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temp
• ½ cup granulated sugar
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
• ½ teaspoon almond extract
• ½ cup raspberry and/or apricot jam

Instructions

1. Set two baking sheets with parchment paper in the oven and preheat it to 350 degrees.
2. The flour and salt should be combined in a medium bowl.
3. Butter, sugar, vanilla, and almond extract should be fluffily combined in a stand mixer basin. Flour should be added gradually and mixed after that.
4. Place rounded tablespoons of the dough on the preheated baking sheets after rolling it into balls. Use your thumb or the back of a 1-teaspoon measuring spoon to make an indentation in the center of the cookies after gently pressing down to form disks. Each cookie should have 1/2 teaspoon of jam on it.
5. Bake the bottoms for 12 to 15 minutes, or until they are just beginning to brown. The cookies should cool for five minutes on the baking sheet before being moved to a wire rack to finish cooling.