Gluten-Free Thumbprint Cookies
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Quick and easy to make soft melt in the mouth Gluten-Free Vanilla Thumbprint Cookies filled with your favourite jam, curd, chocolate or peanut butter.
These Thumbprint Cookies are very popular at home as we can include a variety of flavours within each batch to suit each member of the family. We have one child who loves the jam version, another who likes the peanut butter and I’m rather partial to orange curd. However, we all agree that the chocolate ganache filled versions are a total treat.
These cookies are very quick and easy to make that even young children can help. You can also bake up huge batches at a time which means they are perfect to take to bake sales, plus there’s no nuts so ideal for allergies.
We go through the very simple steps, my favourite way to create the indent, how to freeze and lots of filling ideas.
Why You’ll Love These Gluten-Free Thumbprint Cookies
- Buttery vanilla flavour.
- Melt in the mouth shortbread texture.
- Quick and easy to pull together.
- Popular with the whole family.
- You can mix and match your fillings, so each batch doesn’t have to include all the same filling.
- Easy to freeze.
- Uses my homemade gluten-free flour blend so if you have a tub already mixed up then you only have to reach for one flour.
- No xanthan gum needed.
Watch The Video
Sometimes it helps to see a visual of what I'm talking about. So watch the video to see what it looks like to make your thumbprint cookies.
Ingredients Needed
Gluten-Free Flour – FTL Blend. This recipe uses my Homemade Gluten-Free All Purpose Flour which works really well here as the flour ratio has been carefully tested to ensure the mix between wholegrain flours and starchy flours is balanced. This also means we don’t need to use xanthan gum as the blend is strong enough and produces a well structured and textured bake which can hold together without needing any extra binders.
This flour blend is a mix of 4 different flours: sweet rice flour (glutinous rice flour), sorghum flour, oat flour, tapioca flour (tapioca starch).
Unsalted butter. We need unsalted so we can control the salt content of the recipe. Make sure it is at room temperature.
Caster sugar. It’s a fine white baking sugar available in the UK. Regular white granulated sugar can be substituted.
Egg. This recipe uses 1 medium sized egg which is about 60g with shell (50g each without shell). This is often classified as a large eggs in the US.
Vanilla extract. Use a good quality extract, I like Nielsen Massey.
Salt. I like to use kosher salt in my baking as it has a round gentle flavour. Using salt in your baked goods lifts and sharpens all the other flavours.
Filling. You can fill your thumbprint cookies with jam or lemon curd or orange curd (pictured in the ingredients photo), peanut butter or chocolate ganache.
How To Make Gluten-Free Thumbprint Cookies
For full recipe instructions go to the recipe card at the end of this post.
Cream butter and sugar until pale and soft.
Add egg and vanilla.
Stir in flour and salt.
Chill the dough for 15 minutes. The dough should still be a little soft. If it’s too hard it will crack. Roll into 25g balls and place widely spaced apart on baking tray.
Use thumb or flour dusted pestle (from a pestle and mortar) to create the thumbprint. Spoon filling up to the top of the indent.
Bake for 12 minutes.
Tips and Troubleshooting
The dough can be quite stiff which my handheld mixer didn’t like so I’ve started making these now in my stand mixer.
You don’t want to chill the dough for too long (15 minutes is plenty), otherwise it gets too dry and it will lead to the cookies cracking. Just chill long enough so it’s rollable without being sticky.
I find that the cookies filled with fresh curd tend to spread out a little more, I expect due to the fact that curd has eggs so the curd bakes into more of a set filling.
If you prefer, for your curd version, you can bake your cookies without the filling and pipe in the curd after baking if you prefer that creamy texture.
The thumbprint cookies filled with jam and peanut butter retain their pre-baked shape a little more.
If you are baking the cookies without a filling then they will also puff up a little more as the filling isn’t weighing down the middle as much. However it still leaves a good enough indent to pipe in your filling.
Easy Thumbprint Fillings
Bake your thumbprint cookies without a filling and pipe in the following fillings after baking.
Chocolate Ganache Filled Thumbprint Cookies. Use 90g of chocolate ganache, which is half of this ganache recipe.
Salted Caramel or Sticky Toffee Sauce. I recommend chilling these fillings before piping them into the baked cookies.
These following fillings are best to fill in pre-baking:
- Peanut Butter Thumbprint Cookies. 120g peanut butter (or almond butter) mixed with 1½ tablespoons maple syrup.
- Mincemeat
- Nut Praline
- Apple Butter
- Marmalade
FAQs
This recipe uses my homemade gluten-free flour blend (FTL Blend) which has a good amount of starch which holds the cookies together well without overspreading. Flour blends which have almond flour often spread too much due to the excess moisture in the blend.
Thumbprint cookies can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 5 days
You can make the thumbprint cookie dough ahead of time but make sure to wrap up well in cling film (plastic wrap). Store for up to 3 days. Remove from the fridge and allow to soften (30 minutes – 1 hour) at room temperature so you can shape the dough balls successfully.
You can freeze the thumbprint cookie dough but I recommend shaping the cookie dough balls and creating the thumbprint indent before freezing. Place all the unbaked cookies on a baking tray and flash freeze for 6 hours. Then pack them together in an airtight container or food storage bag to be frozen for up to 2 months. You can fill and bake them straight from frozen, just adding 1-2 minutes to the baking time.
These cookies freeze very successfully. Allow the cookies to fully cool then pack them in layers in an airtight container, using baking parchment between the layers. The cookies will keep well for up to 2 months. You can remove one at a time to enjoy, allowing to thaw for about 1 hour at room temperature.
For the best jam thumbprint cookies use a well-set jam that isn’t too runny. Many recipes say you should warm up the jam prior to adding into the cookie but you don’t need to do that, just use a thickly set jam straight from the jar.
More Gluten-Free Cookie Recipes You’ll Love
These Gluten-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies are irresistibly chewy with a crisp edge and a gooey centre filled with puddles of molten chocolate. Even if you are a novice baker, these are so easy to make using just one bowl.
These incredibly popular quick and easy Gluten-Free Oatmeal Raisin Cookies are made with rolled oats and oat flour for a gloriously chewy bite with crispy edges.
Gluten-Free Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies are the easiest cookies in the world to make and they only have 7 ingredients! Completely flourless and one of the most satisfyingly chewy cookies you will have the pleasure to bake.
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Gluten-Free Thumbprint Cookies
Ingredients
- 225 g unsalted butter
- 150 g caster sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 360 g homemade gluten-free flour blend - FTL Blend
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 150 g jam or curd - or other filling
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 200°C / 180°C fan assisted / gas mark 6 / 400°F.
- Line two large baking sheets with baking parchment.
- Beat together the butter and sugar for 2-3 minutes in a large mixing bowl until pale and soft.
- Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix to combine.
- Finally add the flour and salt and mix to create a stiff dough.
- Chill the dough for 15 minutes, it should still be a little soft but you don’t want it sticky.
- Tear off a little dough, weighing it out to 25g and roll into a little even ball. Complete with the rest of the dough.
- Arrange the dough balls on the two baking sheets with plenty of space in between.
- Press your thumb or a flour dusted pestle (from a pestle and mortar set) into the centre of each ball to create the thumbprint indentation.
- Spoon in your filling – jam, curd, peanut butter etc. - to the top of your indentations.
- Bake the cookies for 12 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and cool for 10 minutes on the baking trays then remove the cookies to a cooling rack to cool completely.
