These soft chocolate thumbprint cookies are filled with chocolate ganache and topped with Christmas sprinkles!
These cookies will melt in your mouth. These are soft and fudgy and every chocolate's lover dream. Honestly, I can't stop thinking about these cookies every day.
If you like making in the holiday season, you should check out our favorite cookies recipes like our brownie cookies, lemon cooler cookies, Ferrero rocher cookies, snowball cookies, and our M&M cookies!
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Why this recipe works
- Extremely easy to make.
- These cookies will melt in your mouth.
- Every chocolate lover's dream cookie!
- Extra soft and filled with chocolate ganache.
- Made with simple ingredients!
Ingredients
Before you start to make this recipe, measure and prepare your ingredients so the cooking process will go smoothly and easily.
Butter- use unsalted butter for this recipe. Only butter will work for this recipe, no margarine, and no coconut oil. Margarine has a weird taste and can ruin the flavor of these delicious cookies.
Dutch cocoa powder– we like to use Dutch-process cocoa powder for our brownies because we like the deep and rich chocolate taste, but the natural cocoa powder will work great as well!
Flour– we used all-purpose flour for this recipe. cake flour will work great as well.
Baking powder – baking powder helps the cookies rise and spread. Make sure that your baking powder isn’t expired. Don’t replace the baking powder with baking soda!
Granulated sugar– we like to use granulated sugar, also the most common sugar used in baking. Caster sugar will work great as well.
Brown sugar- adds a caramelly flavor and chewy texture to the cookies. use either light brown sugar or dark brown sugar.
Eggs- you will need 1 large egg for this recipe. Make sure that your egg is at room temperature.
Vanilla extract- adds extra flavor.
Kosher salt- you will need about â…“ teaspoon of kosher salt for this recipe.
Milk- we used whole milk in this recipe, but you can feel free to use your favorite type of milk.
For the chocolate ganache
Chocolate- use the best quality semisweet or dark chocolate bars for the best flavor. using the best quality dark chocolate is very important in this recipe.
Heavy cream- use full-fat heavy cream for this recipe. the heavy cream makes this french hot chocolate extra creamy and silky.
Christmas sprinkles- you can use any type of sprinkles in this recipe, but we wanted these to be extra festive so we used our favorite Christmas sprinkles.
Instructions
In a big mixing bowl, add the flour, baking powder, and cocoa powder. Mix with a whisk until combined and set aside.
Into a big mixing bowl, or in a bowl of a stand mixer, add the room temperature butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar, and cream it for 2-3 minutes or until it’s creamy and light in color.
Add the egg, vanilla extract, milk, and salt. Mix until well combined.
Sift half of the dry ingredients and mix until almost combined. Add the other half of the dry ingredients. Mix until the mixture is just combined and you cant see pockets of flour.
Cover the dough bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest in the fridge for at least an hour. We let the dough rest in the fridge overnight but it’s not a must.
Using an ice cream scooper, scoop out balls and roll them into balls. Using your thumb or a teaspoon, make indents on each cookie.
Bake the cookies in a 180c (350f) preheated oven for 10 minutes. Don't overbake these cookies so they will stay soft!
We bake these cookies without the ganache, unlike other thumbprint cookies recipe that usually uses jam, so the cookies may lose shape in the oven.
When you take the cookies out of the oven, immediately reshape the cookies using a spoon or your thumb.
Make the chocolate ganache
Melt dark chocolate and heavy cream in a small to medium mixing bowl in the microwave for about 50 seconds.
Let the chocolate and the cream sit for 10 minutes for the chocolate to melt, then mix until the chocolate ganache is smooth and silky.
Fill each cookie with a teaspoon of chocolate ganache and top with sprinkles! Enjoy!
Expert tips
- Use room temperature ingredients. It is important that you use room-temperature ingredients like eggs and butter. This step ensures that your mixture mixes into a homogenous mixture and bakes perfectly.
- Make sure that your butter is at room temperature. An hour or two before making these cookies, take the butter out of the fridge and let it come to room temperature. The butter should be soft to the touch. If your butter is too cold, it will be harder to mix and there will be lumps of butter in the dough.
- Don’t overmix the batter, you don’t want to develop the gluten in the flour. This step ensures you have moist cookies and not dense and dry cookies.
- Measure your flour correctly! When measuring your flour, avoid scooping it with a measuring cup. Instead, stir the flour with a spoon to create as many air pockets as possible, and spoon it into your measuring cup. Finally, level it with a back of a knife.
- Line your sheet pan with parchment paper or a silicone mat! This step helps the cookies to bake evenly, and it makes sure that your cookies release easily from the pan.
- Use a cookies scoop to scoop out the cookies, that way you will have even-sized cookies, plus it ensures that your cookies bake evenly
- Sift your flour! sifting your flour is a very important step when baking and making cookies. Use a fine-mesh sifter to sift out the flour. e also recommend sifting your cocoa powder. Cocoa powder tends to have big lumps, so we always sift the cocoa powder to make sure that there won’t be any cocoa lumps in the mixture.
- Before you start to make this recipe, measure and prepare your ingredients so the cooking process will go smoothly and easily.
- Be patient! I know it’s extremely tempting to eat these cookies as they are pulled out of the oven, but let these cookies cool for at least 15 minutes so they will be more firm and won’t crumble up.
- We suggest letting these cookies cool for 5 minutes and then transferring them to a wire rack to cool for at least 10 more minutes. This step ensures that the bottom of your cookies will not be soggy from the steam.
Faq's
These cookies will last for up to 4 days stored at room temperature in an airtight container.
We wanted to make these cookies extra chocolaty and rich in chocolate flavor, so we used dutch cocoa powder in this recipe.
Yes! If you dont have or like sprinkles, simply skip them.
Chilling the cookie dough
Here is why you should chill your cookie dough:
- The first and the most important reason to chill the cookie dough is to let it cool. This step stops the cookies from spreading too much in the oven. Cold dough results in thicker cookies.
- The second important reason to chill the cookie dough is to let all the amazing flavors come together and create a rich cookie flavor.
Storing
It’s okay to store these cookies at room temperature. Make sure that you store them in an airtight container so they won't dry out.
Freezing
We love freezing cookie dough, and we do it all the time.
Simply, follow the instructions as written and make the dough balls, then transfer the dough balls into a freezer-friendly airtight ziplock bag, and freeze the cookie dough ball for up to 3 months.
When ready to bake the cookies, bake them right away, no need to thaw. Add an extra minute or so for the baking time.
Substitutions
Dairy-free- it’s easy to make this recipe dairy-free. Simply replace the butter with vegan butter and replace the chocolate ganache with vegan chocolate ganache.
Variations
Zest- lots of people like the orange and chocolate combinations. If you do, add 1 tap of orange zest to this cake to add a zesty orange flavor.
Toppings- To make these cookies your own, you can add your favorite kind of toppings to these cookies.
Here are some topping ideas:
- Chopped nuts.
- Caramel bits.
- White chocolate chips.
- Milk chocolate chips.
- Dark chocolate chips.
- Chocolate chunks.
- Pretzels.
- M&M’s
Tools
- Mixing bowl (set of 3)
- Whisk Set (pack of 3) to whisk the ingredients together
- Baking sheet and rack set (our fave)
- Cookies scoop set of 3 (the best cookie scoop we used)
More cookies recipes:
Chewy chocolate chip cookies- These chewy chocolate chip cookies are soft and chewy and loaded with chocolate chips. This chewy chocolate chip cookies recipe is our dream dessert that we never get sick of.
White chocolate cranberry cookies- These white chocolate cranberry cookies are soft, chewy, have crispy edges, and are the perfect cookies for Christmas and the holiday season.
No-bake cookies- These no-bake cookies are probably the easiest cookies to make, they are made with the best chocolate and peanut butter combo, and have the most amazing chewy and fudgy texture.
Chocolate crinkle cookies- Chocolate crinkle cookies are soft and fudgy chocolate cookies covered with crispy powder sugar outer layer.
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📖 Recipe
Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups Flour
- ½ teaspoon Baking powder
- ½ cup Cocoa powder
- ¼ cup Granulated sugar
- ½ cup Brown sugar
- 115 g Butter soften
- 1 Egg
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoon Milk
- â…“ teaspoon Salt
Chocolate ganache:
- 100 g Dark chocolate
- 100 g Heavy cream
Instructions
- In a big mixing bowl, add the flour, baking powder, and cocoa powder. Mix with a whisk until combined and set aside.
- Into a big mixing bowl, or in a bowl of a stand mixer, add the room temperature butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar, and cream it for 2-3 minutes or until it’s creamy and light in color.
- Add the egg, vanilla extract, milk, and salt. Mix until well combined.
- Sift half of the dry ingredients and mix until almost combined. Add the other half of the dry ingredients. Mix until the mixture is just combined and you cant see pockets of flour.
- Cover the dough bowl with plastic wrap and let the dough rest in the fridge for at least an hour. We let the dough rest in the fridge overnight but it’s not a must.
- Using an ice cream scooper, scoop out balls and roll them into balls. Using your thumb or a teaspoon, make indents to each cookie.
- Bake the cookies in a 180c (350f) preheated oven for 10 minutes. Don’t overbake these cookies so they will stay soft!
- We bake these cookies without the ganache, unlike other thumbprint cookies recipe that usually uses jam, so the cookies may lose shape in the oven. When you take the cookies out of the oven, immediately reshape the cookies using a spoon or your thumb.
How to make chocolate ganache:
- Melt dark chocolate and heavy cream in a small to medium mixing bowl in the microwave for about 50 seconds.
- Let the chocolate and the cream sit for 10 minutes for the chocolate to melt, then mix until the chocolate ganache is smooth and silky.
- Fill each cookie with a teaspoon of chocolate ganache and top with sprinkles! Enjoy!
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