So first and foremost I'd like to thank everyone who upvoted last week's recipe. Like I went to check it and I was just in awe of the 282 people who loved it enough to give it an upvote. I'm not here on Steem trying to make money, I'm just trying to share my content with people who might like it and to see that just made my heart swell and has literally made this entire last week so much more bearable with all the crap that's been going on. So just....thank you. Thank you all so, so much.
And with that said, enough of me being sappy and on to the recipe. Thumbprint cookies were a favorite of my great-grandmother who would fill them with homemade jam or caramel or marshmallow or whatever would go yummy in the center of them. In fact the spice mix and salted caramel I used for this were also her recipe, and they're super easy to make but I'll go over that in a bit ^^
You'll Need The Following;
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 2 tablespoons and 1 tablespoon apple pie spice
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (2 sticks) room temperature butter
- 3/4 and 1/3 cups sugar, separated
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- Some homemade salted caramel
Now a few things to note - the links for the apple pie spice and salted caramel are obviously not my great-grandmother's recipes, but they are identical and the caramel one has some nice tips for if you've never made your own before. If you don't want to make your own you can buy apple pie spice in most places like you'd get pumpkin pie spice and you can get the caramel topping in a glass jar like you'd use for ice cream topping but this is one recipe where I went the extra mile to make them myself; or rather, I keep them on hand because the pie spice is useful for a lot of dishes and the caramel is really good in my morning coffee :)
First step is to preheat your oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Then take that 1/3 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon of pie spice you had separated from the rest and mix them together in a bowl. You'll be rolling your raw dough in this later, so set it aside for now.
Start by combining your wet ingredients. Cream your butter and sugar together, then add the egg and vanilla and mix until it's well combined. This is why it's important your butter is room temp - if it's cold it's going to clump and not mix as it should.
Next make your dry mix by combining your flour, pie spice, baking powder and salt and mixing well.
And then slowly add your dry mix to your wet mix, stirring well in between until it's all added together into a nice dough.
Now take your dough and form it into balls however you'd like. Some people use a spoon and such, I have a cookie scoop to make things easier on myself. Before you put them onto your cookie sheet roll them around in that mix of sugar and pie spice from earlier. Don't worry if you don't use it all, you'll want leftovers for later.
Now these are called thumbprint cookies because back in the day you were supposed to use your thumb to make the indent in the middle where the filling would go. This is nice, but it usually has the problem of having one side be sloped/slanted and such. My great-grandmother always just used the end of her wooden spoon to make the indents, and following in her footsteps I have done the same.
So make the indents however you like, and once you've done that toss them in the oven for about 12 minutes.
If you've made your own caramel it might be a bit stiff so feel free to heat it up a little until it's more liquidy. And right once these guys pop out of the oven go ahead and fill the indents with the caramel but don't turn your oven off just yet.
I know these are messy, but that's how I cook; I'm more about how it tastes than making the presentation perfect.
Once they're filled go ahead and pop them back in the oven for another 2 minutes.
Remember that leftover sugar and spice mix from earlier? Go ahead and sprinkle that over the top. It won't be pretty, but we'll fix that in a bit.
Give these guys a few minutes to cool down, though. If you try to remove them right away they're squishy and you'll get caramel everywhere. I've done it, don't make my mistakes XD
Once they're a bit more cool go ahead and shake off the excess sugar and spice and put them in the fridge to chill out. The caramel will set that way, and not drip all over when you try to eat them :D
And that's it. If you don't like the spice mix you can leave it out, but it does add an extra good bit of flavor to them and without it I feel like you're left with just plain sugar cookies but I suppose you could add your own spice mix as well. And of course like I said these don't have to be caramel filled; you could use jam or peanut butter, marshmallow fluff or even chocolate if you wanted ^^
Banner was made by me in Photoshop. All other pictures here were taken by me specifically for this post. Outside links are copyright their respective places. I have been a home cook for over a decade, and any questions or comments about this recipe are encouraged!
If you like this content resteems, upvotes and comments are much appreciated <3