Delicious and cute, too. Our Strawberry Heart Thumbprint Cookies are an easy and fun little sweet treat made with our homemade strawberry jam and a little extra love!
There are some insanely talented cookie decorators out there, and I am not one of them. But I can turn a regular thumbprint cookie into a lil' extra cute one with plenty of from scratch flair and a little added texture with some chopped almonds! My Strawberry Heart Thumbprint Cookies recipe is my fun take on the classic jam-filled cookie! Made with a pectin-free homemade strawberry jam and just a little bit fancier and a lot cuter, these are one of my new favorite Valentine's (or anytime) sweet treats!
Ingredients Needed
- Fresh Strawberries, Sugar, and Lemon Juice - This is for the strawberry jam. While you can of course use your favorite strawberry jam, we'll show you how to make your own simple pectin-free strawberry jam to be able to make these cookies fully from scratch.
- Flour - For the base of the cookies. You could also use your favorite gluten-free four, too!
- Unsalted Butter - You can also use salted butter and just omit the salt.
- Brown Sugar - You can use regular granulated sugar too, but we love the added flavor of brown sugar in this thumbprint cookie recipe.
- Vanilla Extract - This would also be delicious with almond extract!
- Sliced Almonds - Optional, but I love giving some sliced almonds a chop to coat these sweet little cookies in to add a little texture.
- Egg - You'll use the whole egg, but the yolk for the dough, and then the white to roll the unbaked cookies in to help coat them with the almonds.
Tools For This Recipe
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Medium Pot- Needed only if you're making your own jam. Otherwise, no need. Instant Read Thermometer- Only needed if you're making your own jam, and certainly not required, but it will help tell you exactly when that jam has hit the gel stage. Hand Mixer - Not required, but will help with creaming the butter with the sugar.
Baking Sheet - Just one large one is needed for this recipe. Unless of course, you double the recipe, which is never a bad idea!
Large Bowl - We just love our nested glass mixing bowls!
Cookie Mat - While parchment paper works just as well, I recently went to the King Arthur headquarters in VT and picked up these cookie mats that I just love!
Make the Strawberry Jam
You can of course use your favorite jam or jelly, but I also love an excuse to whip up a homemade jam. For this recipe, just like our Blackberry, Blueberry, and Cherry Jam recipes, we make it pectin-free and with just 3 simple ingredients. You could also use another of these fruit jams, too!
Making your own jam is really very simple and just takes a little bit of time. For this thumbprint cookie recipe, we make more than needed for the recipe and then use the rest in our PB&Js, because if you're going to put the effort in, then you should definitely have more for some toast or sandwiches, too!
Easy Simple Cookies
Once you have your jam, then the thumbprint cookie dough recipe itself is super easy. Just give that butter and sugar a quick cream, add the egg yolk and mix, and add the flour with salt and mix. That's it before you give this dough a little chill in the fridge.
Once chilled, roll that dough into 1-inch little dough balls, then roll them in the egg white before giving them a final roll in the chopped almonds.
Bake those dough balls for about 5 minutes before removing them to give a little heart indent in each and then give a final bake before filling with your sweet strawberry jam.
With that jam filling out that little heart in the center, you have these sweet Strawberry Heart Thumbprint Cookies! How stinkin' cute, right?
Recipe Tips
For the almond coating for these cookies, we prefer using sliced almonds over whole because the sliced almonds are already nice a thin. That means when you chop them, you'll get pieces that are already all the same thickness and it makes for a nicer coating.
Use either your thumbs or your fingers to gently create the heart-shaped indents in the cookies. Since you're only baking them first for 5 minutes, the dough will still be plenty malleable to shape into just the right little heart.
We love a strawberry jam for the center of these thumbprint cookies, but you could use whatever jam you have/want! Also, instead of almonds, pecans or walnuts would make a great coating, too.
This recipe makes about 16 little cookies, but you could of course double the recipe to make more! You won't need to double the strawberries for the jam - you'll have plenty.
Chilling the dough will prevent the butter in the dough from melting - which means less spreading when baked. Just 30 minutes is enough for this recipe.
So cute and soooo tasty. Our Strawbery Heart Thumbprint Cookies are a fun little cookie for your Valentine or just to add some fun flair to your favorite cookie tray or your kiddo's lunchbox!
Enjoy! As always, if you make this recipe or any of my others, I love to hear what you think! Leave a comment below, email me, or you can find me on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest!
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Strawberry Heart Thumbprint Cookies
Equipment
- instant read thermometer optional
Ingredients
Strawberry Jam
- 2 lbs fresh strawberries hulled and halved
- 3/4 cup sugar 110 g
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
Thumbprint Cookies
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup light brown sugar packed, 57 g
- 1 egg yolk and white divided
- 1 cup flour 134 g
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 - 3/4 cup sliced almonds chopped
Instructions
Strawberry Jam
- Add the strawberries, sugar, and lemon juice to a medium-sized heavy bottom pot and heat over low, stirring so the sugar dissolves. Turn heat up to medium-high bringing it all to a boil. Gently mash the strawberries and stir often as it cooks and thickens. It will be ready when it reaches 221 degrees. Add to mason jars and let cool before storing in the fridge and using.
Cookies
- Cream Butter and Sugar: Add butter and sugar to a medium sized bowl and use a hand mixer to cream. Add egg yolk and vanilla extract and whisk for another 30 seconds.
- Add Flour: Add flour and salt to a small bowl and mix. Add to creamed dough and mix until well combined.
- Chill: Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes and up to 1 day.
- Preheat Oven: Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F and line a large baking sheet with either parchment paper or a cookie baking mat.
- Roll Dough: Roll out the dough into 1 inch balls, approximately 16.
- Coat with Almonds: Add egg white to a small bowl and whisk. Roll each dough ball in the egg white and then in the chopped sliced almonds and return to the baking sheet and bake for 5 minutes.
- Thumbprints: Remove the tray from the oven and quickly use your thumbs or fingers to press into the dough balls at an angle from the center of the dough ball on one side of the ball and then another angle from the center on the other side of the dough ball to create a heart shape. Reshape the cookie as needed to get the heart indent and shape as desired.
- Final Bake: Return the tray to the oven for the final bake of 8 minutes.
- Fill with Jam: Remove the tray from the oven and let the cookies cool for a couple of minutes on the tray before using a small spoon to fill the heart indents with the strawberry jam.
- Enjoy!
Amy Lui Dong
What an adorable cookie recipe! The ingredients and instructions are understandably easy to do and the presentation is cute because of the heart shape!