Whole Wheat and Almond Raspberry Thumbprints

I don’t know about you, but after that cheesecake, I’m ready for something a little bit healthier. But just a little bit, because we’re still in the midst of cookiepalooza!

So, for your consideration–Raspberry Thumbprint cookies, one of my all time favorites. What makes these healthier? Well for starters, almond meal, which gives the cookies their distinctive almond flavor (along with a splash of almond extract) and also provides body and a bit of protein, always good for helping you to fill up when you’re noming away at holiday parties. Second, the flour in these is whole wheat, and who doesn’t love whole wheat? And finally, when you top these with no sugar added raspberry preserves, you’re adding just a kick of fruity sweetness without all of that added sugar. Fantastic.

As an added bonus, these cookies could easily be made vegan, since they are egg-free. Earth Balance is such an easy substitute for that one lonely stick of butter! And if you’re doing your holiday baking with little ones this year, this is another kid-friendly recipe. I guarantee they’ll LOVE smashing their thumbs into all these cookies!

And did I mention that they taste really, really good?

Whole Wheat Raspberry Almond Thumbprint Cookies
Adapted from Pinch My Salt

After Thanksgiving I had half a bag of almond meal leftover from making Dorie’s All Spice wonder. So for the December holiday baking, I vowed that I would find a recipe to make use of the rest of the bag. I didn’t use quite all of it, but wow, were these cookies a good use! I only made one tiny variation to the recipe–I added about a tablespoon of milk to help the dough come together in my mixer. Again, if you were making these vegan, you could easily use soy or almond milk.

Ingredients

• 1/2 C. butter (1 stick)
• 1/3 C. lightly packed brown sugar
• 1/2 t. almond extract
• 1 C. whole wheat flour
• 1/2 C. toasted almond meal or flour (toasted ground almonds)
• Raspberry jam

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Using a mixer, cream together butter and sugar until light and fluffy. In another bowl, whisk together flour and almond meal then add to butter mixture and blend well. If your dough doesn’t come together, add one tablespoon of milk.

Put cookie dough in refrigerator for 30 minutes (I skipped this step).

Line two baking sheets with parchment paper; roll teaspoonfuls of dough into balls and place on baking sheet; make an indentation with your fingertip in the center of each ball.

Bake for 15 minutes or until the edges are just slightly brown. Let cool on wire rack. When cookies are cool, fill with raspberry jam. If you don’t have a pastry bag, you can put the jam in a zip top bag and cut off a tiny piece of one corner, then squeeze the jam out of the cut corner.

Yield: approximately 2 dozen cookies

As an aside, we’re expecting our first major snowfall of the year here in Baltimore this weekend. As always with these nor’easter style storms, our accumulation depends on where the storm tracks, but since the storm is going to hit on a Saturday, I’m rooting for 12 inches of instant winter wonderland! Woohoo! I’m already tuning up my Rosemary Clooney voice for a very stirring rendition of White Christmas with Noel (my very own Bing) on Saturday night! So do a little snow dance for me!

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