Hey guys Sam here from Sugar Spun Run, and today I'll be showing you how to make thumbprint cookies.
Thumbprint cookies are a holiday staple in my household. No Christmas cookie tray is complete without a few
thumbprint cookies on it. Today,
I'm going to be sharing my favorite recipe for a buttery, soft, thumbprint cookie shell and I'll be sharing a raspberry jam filling,
but you can use your own favorite filling. I'll talk about that a little bit later on. For now,
Let's get started. You will need two sticks, or one cup, of softened unsalted butter.
We'll add this to a large bowl.
And we're going to use an electric mixer to beat the butter by itself in the bowl until it's nice and creamy.
Now, if you bake by weight rather than by cups,
I do have all of the metric measurements for each ingredient included in the printable recipe. You can grab that link in the description below.
Now that our butter is nicely creamed, we're going to add our sugar. You'll need 1/3 cup of granulated sugar, and
1/3 cup of tightly packed light brown sugar, and
we'll use our electric mixer again to beat the butter and sugar together until they're really creamy and nicely combined.
This will take about 30 seconds, and I'm just gonna scrape the sides of my bowl because I want to make sure everything is really well creamed.
Now we are going to be adding 1 large egg yolk. Now, we are just using the yolk.
We're going to throw out the white, and the reason for this is because the yolk is going to help make these cookies tender.
It's going to help them bind together,
but it's not going to make them spread the way the white would. We want these cookies to hold their shape in the oven pretty
well, so there are nice little cavities for whatever filling you use. So just use the yolk.
We're also going to add 3/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract,
and we'll beat our egg, and our vanilla extract into our other ingredients until everything is nicely combined.
So that looks pretty good.
So now we're going to need a separate bowl, and we're going to add two and a quarter cups of all-purpose flour to that bowl.
We will add 2 teaspoons of cornstarch to our flour.
And the reason we're using cornstarch is because not only does it promote a softer cookie, it also is going to help keep those cookies from spreading too much
It's going to give them a nice texture without making them dry.
I really love using cornstarch in my recipes and this one is no exception.
Finally, we'll use a 1/2 teaspoon of salt, and we'll just stir our dry ingredients
until they are well combined.
Now, let's bring back our butter mixture, and
with our mixer on low speed we're just going to gradually add this flour until it's completely combined.
So while you're mixing everything together, especially if you're using a hand mixer, and not a stand mixer
you may notice that your dough is starting to look a little bit dry and
crumbly. You're going to want to keep mixing through this, pause and scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed.
Everything will come together you want this to be like a stiff,
it's gonna seem like a dry dough, but it will come together.
It needs to be like this the dough needs to have this texture so that it holds its shape while it's baking.
All right, and our dough has finally started to come together.
So we are ready to scoop it into cookie dough balls.
You are going to want to scoop your cookie dough into about 1 tablespoon size balls, and
then you're just going to roll it between your palms until you have a smooth ball, and
then if you would like you can roll your cookie dough ball through granulated sugar. I always roll mine through sugar.
It gives them a nice sweet slightly crisp shell on the outside of their nice soft interiors.
So I always roll mine through sugar and I just place that on a wax paper lined plate.
We're gonna be putting this in the freezer.
So just something that's gonna fit in your freezer and will hold all of your cookie dough.
Next, you are going to need a rounded teaspoon, or you can just use your thumb.
These are called thumbprint cookies after all, and you're just going to make a rounded indent in the center of your cookie dough ball.
Now we'll just repeat this with the rest of our cookie dough, and one thing that I do want to note
is that when you're rolling your cookie dough balls you want to roll them into nice tight round balls.
You don't want there to be any cracks or seams, and
the reason for that is because when you make your indent, if they're cracks in the dough,
then you're going to have cracks in your thumbprint cookie. So this just gives them a really nice appearance.
Let's see if we can do an example cookie so you can see what it would look like if we don't roll them very well.
When I go to make my indent,
that doesn't look really pretty. That also reminds me of another thing, when you roll your thumbprint cookies in your sugar,
It's going to make it a lot easier for you to make your indents.
If you don't roll it in sugar you you can get away with that,
but your thumb is gonna stick to the dough a little bit more.
They're not going to look as pretty. So I'm gonna roll out the rest of my cookie dough.
Now our thumbprint cookie dough is going to need to chill in the freezer for at least thirty minutes.
This is going to help prevent any spreading that could happen in the oven.
You'll need your oven preheated at 375 degrees Fahrenheit before you can bake your cookies.
So about 15 minutes into the chill time, you can go ahead and pre-heat your oven.
Once your cookie dough has chilled and your oven is preheated. Now. We are going to fill our thumb prints. Today,
I'm going to be using a seedless raspberry jam.
You can use a jam or preserves,
seeded or seedless and we're going to fill our thumb prints before we bake them.
I do have a chocolate, a chocolate bourbon actually, filling recipe and if you want to fill your cookies with that instead,
I'll leave the link in the description below so you can hop over there.
These cookies do work if you want to bake them without filling and add the filling later.
I'll include a few tips for that when we pull them out of the oven. For now, I'm going to fill each thumbprint,
to the brim with my filling of choice.
You'll need about 1/3 cup of whatever filling you choose to use. A quick note about the jam or preserves,
you'll probably find that when you pull it out of the jar, It's going to be pretty firm and
Jello like. You're gonna want to make this smooth and easy to pour.
So what I do, is I'll pop mine in the microwave for about 5 to 10 seconds or until it can be easily stirred.
That's gonna make the whole process a lot easier and neater for you.
and these cookies shouldn't spread very much at all in the oven,
but I do recommend spacing them at least an inch and a half apart on the baking sheet.
Now, your thumbprint cookies are going to need to bake in your
375 degree fahrenheit oven for about 11 minutes or until the edges are just beginning to turn a light golden brown.
All you really need to do at this point is let them cool or if you're going to fill them let them cool and then add
whatever filling you're going to add. I do have a quick little tip
I want to point out, just in case your cookies happen to spread in the oven more than you'd like.
There's a really quick fix.
While they are still cooling on the cookie sheet within one to three minutes of them coming out of the oven,
You can take a spoon, or I like to use two spoons,
and carefully round the cookies in. These are a pretty bad example to show you because these all cooked up pretty nicely,
but just as an example,
you just kind of
squeeze the sides in a little bit take the spoon around to round it, and
That is how I make my favorite thumbprint cookies.
I think you guys are going to love these they're soft and buttery and whatever filling you use is really going to compliment
this nice cookie shell. If you do. Try it out. Please leave me a comment and let me know what you think
I always appreciate hearing from you. Thank you guys so much for watching and I will see you next time.