I’ve been wanting to make thumbprint cookies for a long time now, but I promised myself and my friends that I wouldn’t bake cookies for a whole month after the holiday season 😉
But when you say Valentines Day, you say chocolate right? And roses, but no way I’m making roses out of chocolate 😉
So even though my husband doesn’t like chocolate I wanted to make thumbprint cookies filled with chocolate.
And I brought these Chocolate almond thumbprint cookies with almond paste to the Super Bowl party we had at a friends place. We don’t do Valentines Day this year because P’s mom is visiting. And well, normally I would write P a card and cook him a fancy dinner. Nothing special in the end.
How I know P is ‘the one’? He is the only person I can spend all my time with and don’t get annoyed.
I like spending time on my own and doing my own thing. I’m actually so good at it that back when I was single I wondered many times how I could do that if I’d ever be in a relationship. But after meeting P it all felt so naturally and normal.
How special is that? We can spend a whole day together ‘doing our own thing’. And I also love to spend time with him a few days in a row, 24/7. I wonder why I don’t get annoyed by him while I always get annoyed by other people I spent much time with it.
This to me says he is ‘the one’, I just know 🙂 I’m such a lucky girl!
So on Valentines Day I will make him some extra special lunch. Too bad he isn’t a big fan of cookies and cake. I’m the one with the sweet tooth here!
But if your loved one likes cookies, please make him or her these chocolate almond thumbprint cookies with almond paste.
I used coconut sugar to make them, that’s an unrefined sugar and you can even buy it at Trader Joe’s. Because coconut sugar is unrefined, it still has all the natural minerals. It is simply made by boiling down the nectar from a coconut flower so it can granulate. It slightly has a caramel flavor and is perfect for baking.
If you don’t have coconut sugar on hand you can replace it with white sugar.
Almond thumbprint cookies filled with almond paste and dark chocolate. A small and delicious treat for Valentines Day!
Ingredients
- 1 cup almond meal
- ¾ cup all-purpose flour
- 1 stick butter, soft on room temperature
- ½ cup coconut sugar
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- 1 tsp lime juice
- 4 oz almond paste*
- 5 oz dark chocolate
- almond slices and chocolate sprinkles to decorate
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Mix the almond meal with the flour until combined.
- In another bowl mix the butter with the coconut sugar, the vanilla extract and the lime juice until creamy and smooth.
- Gradually mix in the flour until combined.
- Prepare 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and make small balls from the dough, about 1.5 inch. Place them om the baking sheet and flatten them a little.
- Use your thumb or the back of a deep teaspoon to press down a well in the center of each cookie.
- Bake the cookies in the oven until golden brown, for about 12 minutes.
- Transfer them to a wire rack to cool off.
- In the meantime: melt half of the chocolate using the double broiler method. Once melted, transfer the pan to the counter and stir in the other half of the chocolate. Keep stirring until everything is melted.
- Once the cookies are cooled off you can fill them with the almond paste (about ½ tsp in each well). Then top off with the melted chocolate. Decorate with almond slices and chocolate sprinkles
- Leave to rest for 30 minutes to give the chocolate some time to set.
Notes
* you can make your own almond paste by grinding equal parts white almonds and sugar in a food processor. Add some lemon zest and also some beaten raw egg until it’s a coarse paste. Do this 4 days before baking the cookies and stir in some lemon juice right before using to soften it.
Enjoy!
1generates