Thumbprint cookies are icons of the holiday season for me. Usually filled with a Hershey’s kiss, my cookies feature homemade chocolate hazelnut spread. You don’t have to miss out on your favorite cookies just because you’re avoiding grains and gluten this holiday season! Last year, I gave you my grain free slice-and-bake cookies, now I’m using that dough to make little sweets filled with homemade chocolate hazelnut spread.
I tested the cookies two ways: one with maple sugar and a bit of arrowroot flour and one with honey as the sweetener. I prefer the dough with the maple sugar because they have more of a shortbread consistency, especially since the added arrowroot helps add that bit of “crunch”. The honey-sweetened dough is nice and flavorful without being too sweet. Like many grain-free baked goods, they’re best eaten the day they’re baked; they tend to soften overnight.
Thumbprint Cookies (Paleo, Primal, Grain Free, Gluten Free)
Makes 1 dozen cookies
For the dough:
2 cups almond flour
2 tablespoons coconut flour
1/2 cup organic maple sugar or whole cane sugar or sucanat
1/2 teaspoon unflavored gelatin (I prefer Bernard Jensen)
1 teaspoon arrowroot
3/4 teaspoon Celtic sea salt
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, cold, cut into tablespoons
1/2 cup homemade chocolate hazelnut spread
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350ºF and and adjust rack to middle position. Place almond meal, coconut flour, maple sugar, gelatin, arrowroot and sea salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse 2-3 times to combine. Add butter and process until dough forms a ball. Using a 1 1/2 -inch cookie scoop, spoon a cookie dough ball and then using your hands, roll it into a ball. Place it on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and using your finger, put an indentation in the top of the cookie dough ball. Repeat with remaining dough. Bake for 11 minutes, until just turning golden brown on the edges. Cool completely. When cool, spoon a teaspoon of chocolate hazelnut spread in the center of each cookie.
Thumbprint Cookies (Honey-sweetened adaptation – Gaps)
Makes 1 dozen cookies
2 cups almond meal
2 tablespoons coconut flour
1/4 cup honey
1/2 teaspoon unflavored gelatin (I prefer Bernard Jensens)
1/2 teaspoon Celtic sea salt
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, cold, cut into tablespoons
1/2 cup homemade chocolate hazelnut spread or honey-sweetened jam
Preheat oven to 350ºF and and adjust rack to middle position. Place almond meal, coconut flour, honey, gelatin and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse 2-3 times to combine. Add butter and process until dough forms a ball. Using a 1 1/2 -inch cookie scoop, spoon a cookie dough ball and then using your hands, roll it into a ball. Place it on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and using your finger, put an indentation in the top of the cookie dough ball. Repeat with remaining dough. Bake for 11 minutes, until just turning golden brown on the edges. Cool completely. When cool, spoon a teaspoon of chocolate hazelnut spread or jam in the center of each cookie.
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{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for all the resources you provide. We have no restrictions on wheat in our house, so I’d prefer to make this recipe (and others of yours) with whole wheat flour. How would I make the substitution? Thanks!
You welcome! Here is a recipe that would be great for a thumbprint dough: http://deliciouslyorganic.net/whole-wheat-maple-pecan-sables/
For most of my grain free recipes, you can substitute the almond flour with whole wheat pastry flour 1:1. Make sure to omit the coconut flour and gelatin. I also have lots of whole wheat recipes here: http://deliciouslyorganic.net/category/index-categories/whole-wheat/ and you can also find lots of recipes utilizing whole grain flours in my cookbook: http://deliciouslyorganic.net/store/books/deliciously-organic.html
Such fun cookies! Love that chocolate in the middle
My mom makes thumbprints every Christmas with jam. I need to convince her to do so e chocolate centers. These sound amazing!
Carrie- you are so innovative! And these beautiful cookies make it seem like noone would miss grains at all!
Thanks, Heather!
We are not on a special diet..Healthy diet, 90% vegetarian. But, when I make almond milk I dehydrate the pulp and make your different cookie recipes using the almond meal. We DO NOT miss flour in our cookies!!!
OOooh, I love that you used your “Nutella” spread for these! Yum!
Thanks, Rachael!
thumbprints are one of my favorites!
Oh these look so very good!! Can’t wait to give them a try.
Just in time for all those fun Cookie exchanges.
Have a great day!
Angelina
Just wondering why links on your site cannot be opened up in a new tab?
I made the GAPS variety of thumbprints this evening and they tasted quite salty, though I used unsalted butter. Also, your recipe has 1/4 C honey, where the alternative recipe has 1/2 C maple syrup. Is honey that much sweeter, or did you intend 1/2 C honey? They looked beautiful, just like the pictures, but the flavor wasn’t quite right….
That’s interesting. Did you use Celtic sea salt or another kind of salt. Some processed salts are much more salty than the unrefined options. I did intend to call for 1/4 cup honey, not 1/2 cup. The original recipe calls for maple sugar, so when I use honey I reduce the amount to make up for the extra moisture in the dough. I’ve also noticed that since I don’t eat many sweets, just a little sweetener tastes very sweet to me. I’ll pull down the amount to 1/2 tsp. Celtic sea salt and test them again. Thanks for letting me know!
I used Redmond’s Real Salt…. but I just realized I also added some vanilla AND some almond flavoring (I was trying to imitate the flavor of my favorite white flour Christmas cut-outs)…. so I bet that’s what did it. Somehow my taste buds ended up deciding the strange flavor was “salty”…. I’ll try them your way next time
Did you use unsalted almonds for your almond meal?
The almonds are unsalted. I used Honeyville almond flour for this recipe.
Carrie, you amaze me at how you are able to make such fabulous food all while sticking to grain-free. Bravo!
Thanks, Aida. That means a lot coming from you!
With that photo it is easy to see how you picked your blog name. Those look yummy and I love that they are gluten free! Stumbled
My daughter cannot have gelatin. Is it essential to the recipe, or can it be omitted?
It can, but the cookies will be more crumbly than intended. You might want to add a teaspoon extra of the coconut flour to help keep the cookies from being too crumbly.
We’re lactose intolerant…what would be the best substitute for the butter? Palm oil shortening or coconut oil?
I just made these and verified the recipe but my cookies did not hold their pretty shape and melted into flat cookies. Do you think I did something wrong with the butter? Maybe it wasn’t cold enough? (I made the first, non-honey recipe). They look so good and I want to re-make them!
Hmm…I’m not sure what went wrong. Did you make any substitutions? What kind of almond flour did you use?
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