Classic Thumbprint Cookies
I have been on a serious manhunt for my “go-to” thumbprint cookie recipe. I’ve tried nearly a half-dozen recipes over the last month and just hadn’t found the one. Thumbprints are a cookie that I remember seeing on countless cookie trays around the holidays growing up. The ones filled with strawberry jam and rolled in nuts were always my favorite. I wanted a thumbprint that was buttery soft and a perfect ratio of dough and jam filling. Most of the recipes that I tried were too much like buttery shortbread that, while delicious, were too crumbly when you bit into them. I finally swapped out half of the butter for shortening and used only brown sugar instead of white sugar, and I ended up with exactly what I had hoped for when I began my thumbprint quest. I now have a huge batch of them in my freezer, ready for Christmas cookie trays!
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You can customize these cookies in a number of different ways to suit your tastes. Instead of rolling the cookies in sugar, you can dip them in some beaten egg whites, then roll them in chopped nuts or shredded coconut. The filling is totally up to you – I did a mixture of blackberry jam, strawberry jam, and apricot preserves. Surprisingly, my favorite is the apricot! You could also do chocolate, caramel, dulce de leche… there are tons of possibilities!
I’m thrilled to have come up with a favorite thumbprint recipe; it’s one that will be part of my holiday baking for years to come.
One year ago: Peanut Butter Cup Cookies
Two years ago: Sticky Toffee Pudding and Nutter Butter Snowmen
Three years ago: Fig and Walnut Biscotti
Four years ago: Nut Crescents
Classic Thumbprint Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup (113.5 g) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ½ cup (102.5 g) vegetable shortening
- ½ cup (110 g) light brown sugar
- 3 egg yolks
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 1½ teaspoons (1.5 teaspoons) vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon (0.25 teaspoon) salt
- 2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 cup (340 g) your favorite jam, jelly or preserve
- Granulated sugar, for rolling
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat; set aside.
- Cream together the butter, shortening and brown sugar with an electric mixer at medium speed for 2 minutes or until fluffy. Scrape down sides of bowl. Add the egg yolks, milk, vanilla and salt, and beat until well combined. Reduce the mixture speed to low and gradually add the flour, mixing until well blended.
- Measure about 2 teaspoons dough for each cookie and roll into balls. Place the granulated sugar in a small bowl and roll the balls of dough in the sugar to coat. Using the back of a teaspoon or your thumb, make a deep rounded indentation in the top of each cookie.
- Bake for 10 minutes, then remove from oven. (At this point there was a little bit of melted butter underneath the cookies, but when they finished cooking it was all absorbed, and they were perfect!) It may be necessary to create the indentation once again with a spoon. Place about 1 teaspoon jam, jelly or preserves into the indentation of each cookie. Bake an additional 5 to 10 minutes, or until lightly browned. Remove from oven. Cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. The cookies can be stored at room temperature for up to 1 week, or frozen for up to 1 month.
Notes
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Leave a review below, then snap a picture and tag @thebrowneyedbaker on Instagram so I can see it!
Hi can I use vegetable oil?
one of our favorite.
I’ve tried these multiple times (I keep coming back because BEB is my go-to recipe site so I keep forgetting and thinking they’ll work) and every single time I’m left with an unworkable greasy mess on my baking sheets. The dough is already too soft to roll, so I chill it, and even still the butter all just oozes out, the cookies flatten, and never cook. Almost all other recipes I’ve found call for only one egg yolk and a quarter cup more flour. I dont know how so many people have had such success with this recipe, but I’m jealous
Great cookie! Great flavor, fun to make. I used raspberry preserves. This recipe is perfect!
Too bad, so sad. Made 2 batches as friends requested these. I forgot the milk in batch one, and the dough cracked when trying to make indentations, so they weren’t very pretty, and definitely NOT a soft cookie, but very yummy classic butter cookie result. I remembered the milk in batch 2 and the dough was beautifully soft and made for a much prettier cookie, however, the texture was terrible…they crumbled into sand…just…awful and unserveable. Very disappointed.