These Gluten-Free Vegan Thumbprint Cookies are soft, melt-in-your-mouth "buttery" and filled with sticky, tart-sweet raspberry jam. They're also refined sugar free, come together in one bowl and the dough doesn't require chilling. Perfect for Christmas!
Thumbprint Cookies originally come from Sweden, where they are known as Hallongrotta. They are known as Thumbprint Cookies in the US, where they are commonly eaten as Christmas Cookies. Similar cookies are eaten in Australia, where they are known as jam drops.
The cookies are usually made with a crunchy shortbread cookie dough, or a soft sugar cookie dough. I tested both and decided to use a sugar cookie dough for these cookies as I prefer the soft, fluffy, melt-in-your-mouth texture.
Thumbprint cookies are traditionally made with raspberry jam, but you can use any type of jam you like.
I recommend something slightly tart such as apricot jam or strawberry jam. You can also use any other spread you like, such as a vegan chocolate spread or vegan lemon curd.
How to make this recipe
Scroll down to the bottom of the post for the full recipe.
- Mix together the ingredients for the cookie dough in a glass mixing bowl.
Tip: If the dough looks too wet: place it in the fridge for an hour to help it firm up. If it looks too dry: add a splash of any type of plant-based milk.
- Shape into small round, flat patties and lay out on a rectangular baking tray.
Tip: Line the baking tray with greased baking paper to make sure the cookies don't stick.
- Use your thumb or the back of a teaspoon to form an indent in the centre of each cookie.
- Fill each indent with a teaspoon of raspberry jam.
- Bake in the oven for around 10 minutes - be careful not to over-bake!
- They will still be very soft when they come out the oven, but will firm up as they cool down.
How long do these Thumbprint Cookies keep for?
These Thumbprint Cookies do taste best when fresh, but keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a few days.
Substitutions you can make
- You can use any type of plant-based milk: almond milk, rice milk, soy milk, cashew milk, oat milk etc.
- You can replace the coconut oil with coconut butter.
- You can use any type of liquid sweetener: maple syrup, agave syrup, brown rice syrup etc.
- If you don't need the cookies to be gluten-free, you can replace the gluten-free flour with plain flour.
- The ground almonds can be replaced with ground walnuts.
- For a nut-free version, use ground sunflower seeds instead of ground almonds and use a nut-free plant-based milk.
- For a refined sugar free version, make sure to use a refined sugar free jam or spread.
- You can replace the raspberry jam with any other jam or spread.
More gluten-free vegan cookie recipes
- Chocolate Chip Cookies
- Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
- Blueberry Breakfast Cookies
- Peanut Butter Cookies
- Oatmeal Cookies
- Snickerdoodles
- Chocolate Cookies
- Carrot Cake Cookies
- Millionaire Shortbread
- Gingerbread Cookie Bars
- Linzer Cookies
- Homemade Oreos
If you try out this recipe or anything else from my blog, I’d really love to hear any feedback! Please give it a rating, leave a comment, or tag a photo @rhiansrecipes #rhiansrecipes on Instagram! Thank you.
Watch how to make this recipe
Gluten-Free Vegan Thumbprint Cookies
Ingredients
- 30 g (⅛ cup) coconut oil (or sub coconut butter)
- 6 tablespoons maple syrup (or sub any other similar sweetener)
- 6 tablespoons unsweetened almond milk (or any other plant-based milk)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Pinch salt
- 150 g (1 ¼ cup) ground almonds (almond meal) *
- 150 g (1 ¼ cup) gluten-free flour blend plus more for rolling (or sub rice flour, or plain flour if not gluten-free)
- 1 teaspoon baking powder (ensure gluten-free if necessary)
- 14 teaspoons raspberry jam ** (or sub any other jam or spread)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius (350 degrees Fahrenheit).
- Place the coconut oil in a large bowl and melt over a saucepan of boiling water or in the microwave.
- Add the maple syrup, almond milk, vanilla and salt and mix well.
- Measure out the ground almonds, gluten-free flour and baking powder and mix well.
- Add these to the other ingredients and mix well.
- If the dough looks too wet, placing it in the fridge for an hour will help it firm up. If it looks too dry, add a splash more plant-based milk.
- Shape into small round, flat patties and lay them out on a baking tray lined with greased baking paper - makes 14 cookies.
- Use your thumb or the back of a teaspoon to form an indent in the centre of each cookie.
- Fill each indent with a teaspoon of raspberry jam.
- Bake in oven for 10 minutes - be careful not to over-bake!
- They will be slightly soft when you remove them from the oven and will firm up as they cool down.
- Taste best when fresh, but keep covered in the fridge for up to a few days.
Video
Notes
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Daniela G
Hi Rhian,
I Love your recipes . Are you familiar with cassava flour? We use it in my family a lot and it’s supposed to be a good sub for regular flour . I’m curious if it would work in your recipes. I also wanted to tell you about tigernut flour, a tuber, not a nut, which is a great sub for almond meal. Thanks
Rhian Williams
Thank you so much! I will have to check out tiger nut flour and cassava flour as I've never used either of them. So for this reason I don't know whether cassava flour would work in this recipe...but I'd love to hear how you get on if you try it out!
Helen Scarr
Loving the Christmas Cake recipe. I made half as a trial, so still have half the fruit waiting in a jar for the next half. I usually write quantities if I'm doing half but didn't the day I baked. Managed to have a bit of half and a bit of full, so needed to juggle. However it was delicious. didn't make the frosting b ut when I make the full recipe I will do frosting. I know that is beautiful. Only thing I've noticed is the cake colour seeps into the frosting over night. And that's a small detail might cover it with chocolate! (joking). Thank you for a beautiful recipe Rhian.
Rhian Williams
Thank you so much for sharing your feedback, so glad you liked it!
Daniela G
Hi Rhian,
So I just wanted to update my last post. I made these with the cassava flour to replace the gluten free flour, and tigernut flour to replace the almond meal. They turned out fabulous! I followed the directions word for word, but the only thing I did was I added a little bit of water , maybe 1-2 tablespoons, to make the dough come together a little better. And I added a pinch more baking powder. They were awesome! So that makes them not only vegan, but gluten and grain free as well! Perfect for people on an autoimmune paleo diet like me!
Daniela G
Oh and nut free!
Rhian Williams
Amazing! Thank you so much for sharing your feedback, that's so helpful to know. I'm so glad to hear you liked them! Thank you!
Mary
These were simple and turned out great. Hard to resist just eating a couple. 🙂
Rhian Williams
Thank you so much, so happy to hear that!
Sharon Barton
Following the recipe word for word, my dough is far too wet, should I add more flour??
I can't roll/mould it at all! What have I done wrong?
Rhian Williams
I'm sorry to hear that, what type of gluten-free flour did you use? Placing it in the fridge for a short time will make it firm up.