Grandma’s Thumbprints with Variations

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This recipe has been handed down in my family for generations. When I was a little girl, my grandmother would host a December cookie-making day with my great-grandmother, mother, aunt, and me. We would spend the day baking batches of cookies and making holiday candy. At the end of the day, everyone went home with cookie canisters overflowing with treats. This dough is so versatile it can be turned into plain thumbprints, or filled with raspberry jam or buttercream, or even round snowballs rolled in powdered sugar.

MAKES 32 cookies

INGREDIENTS

2 cups (230g/8.1oz) coarsely chopped pecans

2 cups (270g/9.5oz) all-purpose flour

¾ teaspoon salt

1 cup/2 sticks (226g/8oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature

⅓ cup (66g/2.3oz) granulated sugar

1½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Jam, buttercream, or powdered sugar for variations (see here for recipes)

  1. Line three baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.
  2. In a food processor, finely grind 1 cup (115g/4.1oz) of the pecans with ¼ cup (34g/1.2oz) of the flour until it is the texture of coarse cornmeal, 10 to 15 seconds. Transfer to a medium bowl. Coarsely grind the remaining pecans in the food processor, about 5 seconds, then transfer to the bowl with the pecan-flour mixture. Stir in the remaining 1¾ cups (236g/8.3oz) flour and the salt.
  3. In a stand mixer with the paddle, cream the butter and granulated sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl. Beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly add in the pecan-flour mixture until combined, about 30 seconds. Scrape the bowl and paddle and continue to beat on low speed until the dough just comes together, about 10 seconds.
  4. Using a #40 (1-ounce) cookie scoop, make 32 balls, rolling them in between your palms until perfectly round. Place no more than 12 balls on each prepared baking sheet, spaced about 1 inch apart. If making thumbprint cookies, use your thumb or the back of a measuring teaspoon to create an indent in the center of each cookie. Place the baking sheets in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to 1 hour.
  5. When ready to bake the cookies, position the oven racks in the upper-middle and lower-middle positions and preheat the oven to 325°F.
  6. Transfer two pans to the oven and bake for 14 to 16 minutes, rotating top to bottom, front to back halfway through the baking time, until the bottoms are lightly golden brown.
  7. Let the cookies sit on the baking sheets for 5 to 10 minutes, unless filling with jam as described here, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container.

VARIATIONS

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JAMMY THUMBPRINTS: Bake the thumbprints as directed. As soon as the cookies come out of the oven, spoon about ½ teaspoon raspberry jam into the indents. (You will need a total of 1 cup/340g/12oz jam.) Let sit on the baking sheets for 15 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to cool completely.

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BUTTERCREAM-FILLED THUMBPRINTS: Bake and cool the cookies as directed. Make 2 cups vanilla buttercream, divide it into small batches, then tint each as desired (see here). Once the cookies are completely cool, fill the indents with the buttercream and decorate.

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SNOWBALLS: Make and form the dough into round balls (do not indent them). Bake as directed. Meanwhile, place 1½ cups (187g/6oz) powdered sugar, sifted, in a bowl. When the cookies come out of the oven and have cooled on the pan for about 15 minutes, they should be cool enough to roll in the sugar. (They should not be hot when they are rolled in the sugar or the sugar will melt.) Gently place the balls one at a time into the bowl of powdered sugar, rolling them around until completely covered.

Place on a cooling rack to cool completely. Store in an airtight container with wax paper between the layers. Before serving, dust with more powdered sugar.