Raise your hand if you ate Raspberry Walnut Thumbprint Cookies as a child. I must be in full childhood reminiscing mode because so many of my recipes this year are favorites from my childhood. To be honest, that might have to do with the fact that my mom and I spent a long time talking about our favorite cookies when she visited us for Thanksgiving. These are as good as snickerdoodles, my snowball cookies or even eggnog cookies at Christmas!
How to Make Thumbprint Cookies
Basic thumbprint cookies are a shortbread type dough that you fill with jam. You press a well into each cookie with your thumb of course!
- Cream together the butter and sugar until creamy and completely combined. Add in the egg yolks, beat until combined. Chill the dough for an hour in the fridge.
- Preheat your oven to 325 °F.
- To make plain thumbprint cookies, roll about 2 teaspoons of dough into a ball then place onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Repeat until the dough is all used.
- Press a well into each cookie using your thumb.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes. Open the oven, place jam in each thumbprint and return
to the oven. Continue baking another 10-15 minutes until golden. - Remove from the oven and move to wire cooling racks and let cool completely on
the sheets.
Raspberry walnut thumbprint cookies are a little fancier. These are also my mom’s favorite cookie and actually our talk inspired my Raspberry Walnut Galette that I created. Which was fantastic and the best galette that I’ve ever made. These cookies are amazing and it’s no wonder they are a classic that appear year after year. So simple to make yet what a gorgeous presentation they make on a cookie platter!
Thumbprint Cookies Tips & Tricks
- Make sure the dough is cold. You want the dough to stay in a little ball shape with the indent so that you can actually fill it with jam. If the thumbprint cookie dough isn’t’ cold, it will spread out.
- Freeze them. You can freeze thumbprint cookies for a couple of months. Simply place them into a sealing freezer safe container in layers, with parchment paper between the layers and store.
- Bake them until golden brown. Thumbprint cookies are basically a shortbread with egg, so for the best flavour you want to bake them until light brown.
- Use any flavour of jam you want. There are endless taste combinations that you can make with thumbprint cookies, blueberry and almond for the nuts, plain with lemon curd in the middle, let your imagination take over!
What is lovely about thumbprint cookies is that you can make them with your own home made raspberry jam from the summertime if you have some. They will be a delightful taste of summertime in a cookie form! You can use other flavors of jam but raspberry seems to pair the best with walnuts.
Hope you enjoy these as much as we did!
Love,
The Christmas Countdown is on Magpie
Pin This Recipe to Your Dessert Board & Remember to Follow Me On Pinterest!
Raspberry Walnut Thumbprint Cookies
Ingredients
Thumbprint Cookie Dough
- 1 cup of butter
- 1/2 cup of brown sugar
- 2 eggs separated
- 2 cups of flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt if you use unsalted butter
- 1 1/2 cups of chopped walnuts
Thumbprint Filling
- Raspberry jam of your choice
Instructions
- Cream together the butter and sugar until creamy and completely combined.
- Add in the egg yolks, beat until combined.Beat in the flour until completely mixed in.
- Chill the dough for an hour in the fridge.
- Preheat your oven to 325 °F.
- Roll about 2 teaspoons of dough into a ball, then dip into the lightly beaten egg whites then roll in the walnuts, then place onto a parchment lined baking sheet. Repeat until the dough is all used.
- When the cookies are all on the parchment lined cookie sheet, press a well in the center of each ball prior to baking using your thumb, of course!
- Bake in the preheated oven for 10 minutes, then open the oven and re-press the wells using the handle of a wooden spoon to gently indent the cookies again. While the cookies are still on cookie sheets fill the wells with the raspberry jam. Return to the oven.
- Continue baking another 8 minutes until golden.
- Remove from the oven and move to wire cooling racks and let cool completely on the sheets.
Notes
Nutrition
T2 says
Im going to keep the choice words out but to the people rating this that never made it, youre obv not very smart!! you rate the recipe when u make it, duh. not just for fun!!
this recipe sucks! they spread all out and don’t keep shape at all. not happy I wasted so many ingredients on this and I have an order due this evening. last cookie I waited to make never, made them. messed up!
Andrea says
These were great and I made them! Sorry yours sucked so bad.
Do dee says
that’s what happens when you’re an angry cook
Linda says
Your directions do not say when to add flour
Shelly O says
Quick question I mean to ask about the dough not already made cookies
I meant can you freeze / best way to freeze the dough ? In a log then make and dip in walnuts or make the cookies with well and nuts layered in parchment then bake ?
Karlynn Johnston says
Yeah, wrap the dough up and freeze until you need to use it. Just let it defrost in the fridge and then use it as directed in the rest of the recipe.
Shelly O says
I meant can you freeze / best way to freeze the dough ? In a log then make and dip in walnuts or make the cookies with well and nuts layered in parchment then bake ?
Leslie says
Awesome! I was torn between making this recipe and a similar recipe on the NY Times website. SO GLAD I used this recipe!
I added the zest of one lemon to the dough. Then made part of the batch using fig preserves in the thumbprint and strawberry preserves in the second half of the batch.
YUMMY !!! Cookies were very tender, yet crunchy due to the walnuts.
susan gortva says
remembering these makes me want to cry. I just saw my sister 2 days ago with her daughter. my niece said why does everyone in our family cook so good. food is a big beautiful deal. thank you karlynn for keeping it going
Healthy Kitchen 101 says
aw god, these cookies sticked along with my childhood. I still remember my mom often bought my a package of raspberry thumbprint cookies and I loved it a lot. I used to finish all the raspberry jam before eating the cookie. Aw, such a beautiful memory. I’m so excited to use your recipes to make mine own cookies ?
Pam Mansveld says
Love those cookies! I did mine with pecans and plum jam this year!
Tanya Gregory Thomlinson says
That’s how my mum used to do them … the plum jam was always homemade, from the tree in our backyard. Ah, sweet memories!
The Kitchen Magpie says
Awww what lovely memories!! Plum jam sounds delicious!!
Stace Dace says
Yum, my favorite cookie!
The Kitchen Magpie says
Yes…I haven’t made them in two years and they are my moms favourite, I think I’ll be making them again !
Mary P Hoffman says
My mother didn’t make them, but friends of my parents always had them. It was the highlight of an otherwise boring afternoon at adult party. 🙂
The Kitchen Magpie says
I think I’m making these this year.. I haven’t for a couple years now.
Around the World in 80 Cupcakes says
I would adore these with hazelnuts or pistachios \U0001f60b\U0001f60b\U0001f60b Thanks for yet another great recipe \U0001f60d
Shelly O says
Can you freez these ? What is the best way ?
Andrea Daniar says
We do something similar, only use pecans and then dough also has some lemon juice in it – adds a nice bit of tartness to offset the sweet jam.
Mark Read says
My mom used to make them but called them thimble cookies.
The Kitchen Magpie says
Mmm that would be delicious too!
Lindsey says
I made these cookies, the instructions did not say when to add flour so I added it before chilling. It was just terrible. Something was wrong in the ingredients list or instructions and I hated these cookies . Please fix error
Carol Sharman says
Very similar to my family’s favourite except that we like them with red currant jelly.
Ann Picken says
must try!!!
frimminjim says
These are without a doubt my favourite cookie and also one of the cookies from my childhood. The recipe I have, which has been passed down from my mom through my Grandmother calls for more of a lemon shortbread cookie. The lemon tang combined with buttery richness, walnuts and raspberry is sublime.
Marty Wittrock says
I’ll raise my hand REAL HIGH..! I LOVE those old-style Thumbprint cookies…If I wasn’t on a diet I’d eat a plateful..! Thanks for bringing back some GREAT memories on those Karlynn..!