IN THE KITCHEN: Thumbprints for Us Ladies (or Big Guys)
It’s my third baking experiment with the Tuesdays With Dorie group. Mike from Ugly Food for an Ugly Dude picked Thumbprints for Us Big Guys. Truth be told, I was hesitant to bake this weekend because then they sit around the house and I gobble them up like a cookie monster. But these looked so cute and dainty, and I had never made jam-filled cookies. Therefore, I tried to boost their healthy factor. I used almonds instead of hazelnuts, whole-wheat pastry flour instead of all-purpose flour, super fruit jam, and I halved the recipe. It still yielded a large tray filled with bite-size cookies.
This cookie has so few ingredients that it takes only a few minutes to mix the dough. It’s butter, sugar, flour, nuts, and extract. There is no egg, salt, baking powder, baking soda, or other spices. Half of the dry ingredients are ground nuts. I love almonds, but you could use any nut.
Even though I halved the recipe, I used the same amount of vanilla and almond extract.
It produces a light, crumbly dough. I refrigerated the dough overnight.
Then rolled them into little balls and used my healthy, Crofter’s SUPER FRUIT to fill them with:) Yes, super fruit filled cookies sound quite healthy, right? It’s a delicious spread of acai berries, morello cherries, pomegranates, and red grapes. The recipe actually calls for the jam to be boiled and put in the cookies after baking, but I thought that it sounded easier and less messy to put it in before baking them.
I rolled them in powdered sugar before baking, which all but disappeared when they were baked. I don’t recommend that technique.
I really liked these cookies. There were incredibly light and delicate. They would sort of melt in your mouth. I loved the almond and super fruit combination. These are the perfect tea cookies in my opinion. I would actually call my version Thumbprints For Us Ladies.
Please visit the rest of the TWD bakers to see what they have come up with! You can find the recipe for the cookies on Mike’s website (it’s interesting – I’d check it out) or on page 164 of Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan.
yum!!! kris has already requested I make these next hahaha, but I need to wait a while after making those peanut butter pillows (which are already gone 1 day later…)!
Haha! Yes, I have been baking a lot lately. I made that tart and the peanut butter cookies and the thumbprint cookies. Like I said – cookie monster. I’m turning into a cookie monster. However, these little cookies are awesome. They are worth making.
I always hear such great things about that spread, the flavor combinations sound delicious! Thumbprint cookies always remind me of Christmas
Im so glad you didn’t say Thumbprints for big ladies!;)
Your cookies look so good!
Thanks Michelle – yours look great too!
They look lovely, and what a great idea to fill them before baking! The less fuss, the better, I think:) I used lemon curd and wasn’t sure how it would react to the oven, so filled mine later.
Oh, lemon curd. That’s a cool combo!