Almond Flour Thumbprint Cookies

The best Almond Flour Thumbprint Cookies that are gluten-free, made with 6 ingredients and have slightly crispy, buttery cookie base with your choice of jam filling.

Reader’s Review

Love this recipe – it was easy and delicious! Needed a last minute recipe for a Passover dessert. By using almond flour, these worked! They were soft, chewy, and delicious!
RocknRobn

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Thumbprint cookies are classic Christmas cookies. My healthier version are these almond flour thumbprint cookies that are slightly crispy, naturally sweetened and flavored with hints of vanilla and almond.

The jam filling of your choice sits in the little thumbprint groove making these gluten-free cookies one of the most adorable holiday cookies out there! Don’t feel like jam? Try my pistachio thumbprint cookies.

You need only 6 ingredients and 1 bowl to make thumbprint cookies with almond flour! Great for kid friendly baking or last minute company, they also freeze beautifully!

Ingredients for Almond Flour Thumbprint Cookies

Almond flour, jam, baking soda, vanilla, butter, and maple syrup.

Almond flour: I recommend to use superfine blanched almond flour or homemade almond flour works too. It’s pretty unique in its traits and the ability to replace any type of wheat flour is almost unmatched. Don’t try and use anything different. Maybe almond meal will work.
Unsalted butter: Softened butter is needed to cream the butter nicely and keep the cookies from spreading too thin. Butter should be soft but not melted. Coconut oil will also work, it may just make your cookies a little crispier.
Maple syrup: A natural sweetener. You could use honey or liquid sugar-free sweetener instead.
Pure vanilla extract: A warming flavor addition.
Baking soda: This adds a light and airy texture to the cookie and prevents them from becoming too dense.
Jam: I used peach and raspberry jam. You can use store-bought or homemade jam.

Step by step process how to make almond flour thumbprint cookies.

Make cookie dough: In a large bowl, whisk together almond flour and baking soda until there are no lumps. Add butter, maple syrup, and vanilla extract, mixing with spatula until a ball of dough forms.
Shape the cookies: Using 1/2 tablespoon of dough, roll it into a ball, place on lined baking sheet and make a little indent on top with your thumb in the center of each cookie. Repeat with remaining dough.
Add filling: Add a dollop of your filling of choice to the grooves of each cookie. It’ll be about a teaspoon of jam. Use the same for all or switch it up for variation.
Bake: Transfer cookie sheet to the oven and bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove almond flour thumbprint cookies before they start turning golden brown. Cool for 30 minutes and enjoy!

Let Cookies Cool

Thumbprint cookies with almond flour have more moisture overall than cookies made with regular flour. This means that they may still be quite soft when taken out of the oven. It’s important to allow them to cool for a minimum of 30 minutes before moving them to a wire rack or moving them at all. They need time to set!

Tips for Best Results

Measure flour correctly: Do not reach into the bag with flour with the measuring cup itself. Instead, fill it with flour by the spoonful, the use the back of a knife to scrape off excess from the top.
For uniform indent sizes: Use the back of a measuring spoon rather than your thumb, it’s foolproof.
Smooth appearance: When pressing down on the cookie, you may notice there are a few cracks that appear. For a smoother look, wet your finger and rub down the cracks to smooth them back out.
To avoid cookies from spreading: Starting with soft butter means your butter will take a longer time to melt as they bake. If you use melted butter, it won’t be able to stop the cookies from spreading to catch up to it.
To soften butter quickly: Place a stick of butter upright (vertical) on a small plate. Fill a tall glass that fits over it with water and microwave until hot. Dump the hot water, place the glass over butter, place the plate with the glass covered butter into the microwave, and close the door, but don’t turn it on. Allow it to sit for 10 minutes.

Almond flour thumbprint cookies filled with jam.

Variations

Extract: Swap the vanilla extract for an almond extract for additional almond flavor.
Get creative with your filling: Think about flavors like strawberry, apricot, cherry, blueberry and chia jam. Nutella, pistachio cream, peanut butter, or lemon curd would also be great. You can use whatever you like!
Nuts: For additional texture, sprinkle the tops with crumbled pecans or almonds.
Zest: Finish the jam filling with a bit of lemon zest to add a little tart to the sweet.
Vegan: Make these cookies dairy free by using vegan butter. It may differ in taste or texture, but still worth making.
Glaze: Make a delicious glaze to drizzle on top using powdered erythritol or monk fruit extract.

Store: Keep cookies stored in a cookie jar for 5 days. If you notice they start to dry out, transfer them to an airtight container. Don’t do this, to begin with, otherwise your thumbprint cookies will quickly become soggy.

Storage Tip

The bread trick! Placing a slice of bread in your cookie jar will help absorb any excess moisture.

Freeze: Place cookies in a freezer friendly bag. Separate layers with parchment paper and keep frozen for up to 3 months. Thaw on the counter for a few hours.

FAQs

Why did my thumbprint cookies go flat?

Did you forget the baking soda? How about your butter, was it soft and not too warm or melted? These are usually the reasons why thumbprint cookies lose the pep in their step.

Should I fill them before or after baking?

It’s up to you. When you add the filling before baking, it settles into the cookie nicely, and doesn’t tend to fall out, and it just becomes part of a whole. However, you could add it in once the cookie has cooled, too.

If you add it in just after taking the cookies out of the oven, it will thin out the jam and possibly make it a little runny. I really only recommend adding your filling after you bake them when opting to pop a chocolate kiss on them as their center.

More Cookies Recipes to Try

Almond flour thumbprint cookies stacked on top of each other.

4.89 from 9 votes