Thumbprint Almond Cookies

These quick, easy and surprisingly flavoursome cookies are inspired by a Gourmet website recipe. They are a great occasion to use up the opened jam jars or the surplus of the home-made jam no longer fitting even to the tiniest jar. Of course, it is possible to fill them with fresh fruit, chocolate, nutella or whatever one likes (however some types of filling should be added after the baking stage I guess… otherwise it might burn). Surprisingly they are not dry at all, in fact they are a bit chewy and definitely addictive…

I modified a bit the recipe calling for matzo bread, unfortunately impossible to find where I live. I substituted it with basic, slightly salty crackers and they worked very well adding a salty accent. Thus, not only have I used up my open jam jars, but also the crackers I’ve had for weeks in my cupboard). I omitted almond and vanilla extract, as even without those the cookies have a very rich almond flavour and don’t need any additional vanilla taste in my opinion.

Special equipment: cookies/tartlets/muffin forms make the baking process much easier

Preparation: 30-40 minutes+ 1h30 min in the fridge

Ingredients:

45g crackers (matzo bread in the original recipe)

80 g ground almonds

100g melted butter

130g caster sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 egg

a couple of tablespoons jam or marmelade

Mix everything in a food processor. Put into the fridge for at least 1 hour to become firm.

Preheat the oven to 180°C.

Fill in the greased mini-muffin – or other –  forms with a 2 cm thick layer of the dough. (You can also form circles and put them simply on a baking sheet, but in my case the cookies spread around them and became flat).

With your thumb (or another similarly shaped tool) make a small indentation in the middle of each cookie. Put once more into the fridge for 30 minutes.

Take the cookies out from the fridge and fill the indentations with jam or the filling of your choice.

Bake around 10 minutes till they become slightly golden.

Take them out of the oven and take out of the forms when they are cold.

They keep for several days covered with a plastic film.