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Grain-free, dairy-free, vegan, refined sugar-free Paleo Thumbprint Cookies warmly spiced with cardamom, and make excellent holiday gifts. Plus as far as I’m concerned, they’re healthy. Eat Share them all!
Over the weekend, I finally finished reading The Fault in Our Stars (took me 2+ months), so you can just imagine the hot mess of a situation that was happening on my couch, and how in need of cookies I was. Crockodile tears? Psssh! T. Rex tears. Emotion eating? Yes to the nth degree.
During the 18,000 stages of grief I was going through while finishing the book and ugly cry-texting my friends, I LIT-RALLY ate half of a batch of these Gluten Free Gingerbread Cookies, as well as a sizable portion of this batch of thumbprints. And amidst the ugly cry-texting, T. Rex tears and lone cookie fest-ing, I sobbed to myself, “I’m gonna have to bake more cookies,” because: gifts.
I imagined handing my friends and families holiday “cookie” plates filled with nothing but good intentions. Like, “Here, friends, have a plate of air. What’s that you ask? Yes, I read another tear-jerking teenage novel. I promise, I won’t do it again…until I do.”
The Fault in Our Stars: making air out of holiday cookie plates.
You don’t need the excuse of a tearjerker to pop thumbprint after thumbprint in your mouth. And you don’t get to feel guilty over these, because there’s no sugar, dairy, or grains in the whole recipe.
The thumbprints taste SO buttery in spite of the fact that there’s ZERO butter in them.
And they’re the easiest things ever to make. You just stir every last ingredient together. No eggs, no creaming of butter and sugar. Just you, a bowl, and your good intentions.
I used my Cranberry Sauce with Ginger and Maple (<- paleo) and Dalmatia Fig Spread (<- not paleo, but delicious) for filling these thumbprints. You can use any jam or preserve you’d like – just note that using store-bought jams will make these thumbprints un-paleo on account of the sugar. I won’t notify the paleo authorities if you don’t notify the book club authorities that it took me 2 months to read TFiOS.
Make these for your homies!
Cardamom Almond Paleo Thumbprint Cookies
Ingredients
- 2 ½ cups almond flour
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
- 5 Tbsp coconut oil, melted and cooled
- 3 Tbsp pure maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
- Homemade Cranberry Sauce*, or jam
Instructions
- Add the dry ingredients to a bowl and stir to combine.
- Add the remaining (wet) ingredients to the bowl with the dry ingredients and stir vigorously until well-combined and a dough forms. If the dough seems too crumbly, add another tablespoon of coconut oil or pure maple syrup. The dough should resemble the consistency of regular cookie dough - neither too wet nor too dry, and it should press together easily.
- Roll a small ball of cookie dough in your palms, and gently press the center with your thumb. Place on a cookie sheet. Repeat for remaining cookie dough.
- Fill the cookies with cranberry sauce (or preserves of choice) by measuring ½ teaspoon of sauce/preserves/jam per cookie, and placing in the center well of the cookie. Refrigerate the dough on a large baking sheet or large plates for at least 1 hour.
- When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake cookies on the center rack of the preheated oven for 8 to 12 minutes, or until cookies are slightly golden brown around the edges. Allow cookies to cool completely on the cookie sheet before attempting to move them. If you move the cookies while they are still warm, they will crumble easily.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Like this recipe? Rate and comment below!
These were very good, I did however make a couple of changes. I used coconut sugar instead of the syrup (because I didn’t have any) and I added an egg because it seemed so dry I thought they may completely crumble. That definitely helped…….we don’t do the paleo diet, so maybe others could use a flax egg if it’s super dry. Next time I won’t add cardamom because our traditional recipe never did. And I will use 2 teaspoons of almond extract and no vanilla, again to be more traditional. They were wonderful though, so happy to find them, we don’t even miss the wheat flour in them! Thank you!
My new favorite cookie recipe!! These are 1) super easy; 2) super quick; 3) low in sugar, but you’d never know; 4) totally addictive!
Hey so I made these tonight but I made them with nut pulp I had dehydrated from making nut milk, and they didn’t stay together so I ended up putting the “dough” in ramekins and topping with jam. That was a user error, and I will try again when I get more actual almond flour! Regardless, the flavor is AWESOME! I used some honey-fig jam I made and it just screams for some vanilla ice cream, or whip cream! Nice recipe, good that it’s vegan for people who need that!
That sounds so tasty! And resourceful! I’m glad you were able to put the recipe to use..and now I’m craving your creation for breakfast, ha! 😀 Let me know if you try the recipe again using almond flour. 🙂
flavor is amazing but I had a hard time keeping them together. Mine turned out very crumbly and were hard to form. Anyone else have this issue? I’d love to try again
Hi Lala, generally gluten-free cookies are more crumbly than regular all-purpose flour cookies, but I didn’t have that particular issue with this recipe. I’ll have to make them again and see if the recipe needs to be tweaked. Thanks for dropping in!
These just came out of the oven. They’re amazing, and came to together so quickly! I made half with apricot jam, and the other half with strawberry. The apricot if my favorite. Thanks for the great recipe!
OOOH, apricot and strawberry sound awesome! So glad you like the recipe! I found the almond meal/coconut oil concoction to be super quick and easy to whip up, too. Enjoy! xoxo
I made these last night and they were absolutely divine! I missed the note about putting the jam in before baking, so I added it after and the cookies were still a success. Delicious recipe, thank you!
Wahoo!!! So happy you like them! I’ve done the same thing and have added the gooey center after baking, which I enjoy too. The advantage to adding the goo prior to baking is it comes out with kind of a caramel-y flavor, and the center stays put, so you can package the cookies up and manhandle them without worrying about the center coming out. SO happy you like them! Happy Holidays!! xoxo
I could barely function while reading The Fault in Our Stars, let alone bake COOKIES. You, my dear, are a superwoman.
This recipe doesn’t say how many cups of coconut oil to use. However, from similar recipes, I think it’s reasonable to replace the question mark (?) with 1/4 cup.
Here’s where I looked:
1. https://web.archive.org/web/20130226091135/http://www.againstallgrain.com/2013/02/16/thumbprint-cookies-with-vanilla-cream-filling/
2. http://detoxinista.com/2012/12/almond-thumbprint-cookies-with-cherry-jam-grain-free-vegan/
It consistently seems that you add 1/4 cup of oil per 2 cups of flour.
Thanks for doing the research! You hit the nail on the head. It should have been 1/4 cup. 😀 Many thanks, and enjoy!
Julia, I immediatley Pinned this recipe, then read the comments above–thanks dessertfortwo for noting the ? coconut oil amount. This looks like a fabulous recipe and I look forward to trying it after you update the coconut oil ?
Thanks for pinning and for your interest, Letty!! Recipe’s updated- hope you enjoy! xo
Love the cardamom in here. I want some of those cookies right now! Oh, and the Fault in our Stars was one of my book club books this year but it was so damn sad I couldn’t even handle getting through it.
Oh girl, I cried me some gator tears too when I read that book. Thankfully it wasn’t around the holidays so I didn’t have any cookies on hand but if I had these, it would have been dangerous! They look so buttery and perfect, it’s hard to believe there isn’t any flour or butter. I want to eat them all!!
Recipe looks divine……..so how much coconut oil equals “?”
Hi Jeannie, thanks so much, glad you like it! You’ll use 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon of coconut oil 😀
These sound so dreamy! I love how easy they are!
PS there’s an error in your recipe..it says ‘? cup coconut oil.’ Dang keyboard!
Ruh roh, Thanks for the catch! It should be 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon. When I copied the recipe over from my google document, the format must have gotten messed up 🙁 xoxo
Ohhh ok I’m going a.) keep these all myself and b.) how did you not read that book until now?! Total tear jerker annnnd I loved it!
This recipe looks divine! There seems be a typo with the amount of coconut oil…thank you so much for the beautiful recipe, I am looking forward to trying it~
Thanks for letting me know, Farah 🙂 The recipe’s fixed now
I know, The Fault in Our Stars is pretty rough! I read that about a year ago, and man, I don’t even know if I can watch the movie. These look like an amazing addtion to my holiday dessert menu!