Coconut Thumbprint Cookies
‘Tis the season to go digging through the tin of recipes my mom gave me a few years ago! I have an old recipe tin that belonged to my great Aunt Ruth, full of old family recipes from my great grandmother, grandmother, great aunt, and friends of the family. I love it and though I don’t cook from it often, I do reach for it when I think of cookies. Sadly, I never met my biological grandmother or great-grandmother but I do have their recipes and all the family lore to go with them. Gladys, my great grandmother, lived on a farm and had a ritual of baking cookies every Sunday for the week ahead. As a result, I have cookie recipes for days.
Thumbprint cookies happen to be one of my favorites both because they satisfy a sweet tooth but also because they are so easy to riff on. For example, this recipe called for strawberry preserves, which I used, but I also swapped in some other jams I had laying around. Cardamom Blueberry jam? Done! Orange-Apricot Marmalade? Yes, hunty.
These cookies are pretty straight forward and simple. Nothing elaborate, no resting, no rolling. Just mix it all together, form the dough into balls, bake, press, bake, fill, enjoy. The coconut in the cookies opens the possibilities up to all kinds of fillings. Maybe something with lime? Or something creamy with a touch of rose? Go wild!
Ingredients
1/2 C butter
1 package yellow cake mix
1 T water
2 eggs
1 1/2 C flaked coconut
1 C favorite jam, jelly, or preserves
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375
Cream the butter in a mixing bowl with a hand mixer or a stand mixer until soft, creamy, and light.
Add half the cake mix, water, and eggs and mix. Add the rest of the cake mix and beat until smooth. Stir in the coconut.
Roll the dough into small balls using a tablespoon. Place the balls about 2 inches apart on a greased cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes.
Remove from the oven and make a small indentation using either a teaspoon or your thumb. Bake another 5 minutes longer or until the bottoms are golden brown.
Remove from the oven and cool on wire racks. Place about 1 teaspoon of jam, jelly, or preserves in the center of each cookie.
