Vanilla and Almond Jelly Cookies
Spread the holiday cheer around by using your favorite flavor of jelly to fill these Vanilla and Almond Jelly Cookies. Don’t forget to save some for Santa too!
Disclosure: This is a sponsored post. I received monetary and product compensation from Uncommongoods. All opinions expressed are my own. Today’s post is sponsored by Uncommongoods, a website that is dedicated to bringing unique and hand crafted gifts to the public at large. Start your online Christmas shopping with them this week! Need a gift for your mother? Click here to view their gift selections for moms. Need to find a gift for your husband, then click here. I may even have Husband Man take a look at their website for my Christmas gifts as well.
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One of the things I enjoy most about this time of the year are the festive recipes that I come across occasionally. For some reason, I always seem to fixate on desserts. It may just be my popular sweet tooth, however, I just can’t imagine going through the Christmas holiday without baking a few things. I’m always on the hunt for new cookie recipes to fill up our collection. Don’t even get me started on my collection of holiday cookie cookbooks either. I guess you can say that it’s just my favorite time of year recipe-wise.
These cookies will be added to our family favorites collection. I have always wanted to try my hand at baking thumbprint cookies and this week, I had the opportunity to do just that. These delectable treats have graced the pages of my growing holiday recipe collection for years. Each of them seem to be made differently, however, the results were the same.
The base of the cookie is made with a shortbread/sugar crust, while the middle is filled with jam (or jelly). A drizzle of almond flavored icing brings the entire treat together. As my nine year old daughter likes to say, these cookies were “da bomb dot com.” Husband Man was gracious enough to bring some of these cookies into work yesterday. Needless to say, he came home with an empty plate. When that happens, I know we have a winning recipe on our hands!
Of course, these cookies would not have been possible if it weren’t for my good friends over at Uncommongoods. They provided me with an order Dessert Baking Salts and a 4 pack of Artisan Jellies. The jelly filling that you see in these pictures are courtesy of them. I ended up using all 4 flavors of jellies (Apple Pie, Carrot Cake, Strawberry Chipotle, and Sunshine Citrus). I put a pinch of Vanilla-Cardamom Salt (from the Dessert Baking Salts package) into the cookie batter as well. The cookies with the Strawberry Chipotle and Apple Pie ended up being our favorites, with Carrot Cake and Sunshine Citrus coming in a close second!
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Ingredients
For the cookie:
- 1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
- 2/3 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
- 1/8 teaspoon Vanilla-Cardamom Dessert Salts OR 1/8 tsp. of vanilla extract
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- Jelly or Jam flavoring of your choice
For the frosting:
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 to 3 teaspoons milk
- 1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract
Instructions
- With an electric mixer, cream together butter, granulated sugar, almond extract, and dessert salt on medium high speed for 5 minutes or until light and fluffy.
- With the mixer on slow speed, slowly add in the flour. Mixing until the dough is well combined.
- Place the dough in a plastic ziplock bag and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours or overnight.
- When ready to bake, take the dough out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Scoop dough out with a 1 tablespoon measuring spoon and roll them into little balls.
- Place the balls on a cookie shoot lined with parchment paper, making sure they are about 2 inches apart.
- Make an indention in the center each ball with your thumb.
- Fill each indention with 1/4 teaspoon of jelly or jam.
- Bake for 15-18 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned.
- Let the cookies cool on sheet for 2 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack.
- Refill indentions with more jelly/jam if desired.
- While cookies are cooling, mix the powdered sugar, milk, and almond extract in a small bowl. Mix until the frosting becomes a smooth consistency.
- Drizzle glaze over the cookies and let it dry.
- Store cookies in an air tight container for up to 5 days.
These look amazing! Love that you used different jellies. Pinning now.
Thank you for the pin 🙂
Do these freeze well?
We haven’t tried to freeze them yet mainly because we ate them all before they could even hit the freezer…lol. You can probably freeze the dough right after step 3 and then when you are ready to bake, take them out and continue with step 4 on up.
These cookies are a family favorite around the holidays!