Easy High Altitude Orange Cardamom Fig Thumbprint Cookies are here to raise your holiday spirit level to: High. Melt-in-your-mouth tender and delicately spiced, these bite-size buttery rounds with their velvety pillows of jam are the perfect holiday sweet.
Thumbprint cookies: a holiday classic, right? Most often made with raspberry jam, they make frequent appearances in holiday treat boxes and on dessert tables. They’re cheery and yummy, for sure, but dare I say, a little … vanilla. Both literally and figuratively. We’ve all had them a million times.
Which, who’s complaining, they’re delicious, but being something of a spice hound, I’ve been craving something with a little more oomph. These Easy High Altitude Orange Cardamom Fig Thumbprint Cookies are a slightly more sophisticated and festive interpretation of the classic.
Even better at altitude!
Flavored with warm cinnamon, citrus-y cardamom, and orange zest, then topped with sweet fig jam, these festive cookies are crafted with a few tweaks that help them bake up perfectly at high altitudes.
The dough takes literally minutes to make, no chilling required. With a simple base of butter, sugar, flour and an egg, this version has a couple key adjustments. First, rather than a simple vanilla-flavored dough, we’re bringing in lots of flavor with cinnamon, cardamom, and orange zest. An extra egg yolk adds moisture and helps create a velvety texture.
Thumbprint cookies, often made with basic shortbread dough, can have a crunchy, brittle texture, but in addition to that extra egg yolk, a cup of almond flour creates the most luxuriously soft, tender texture. It doesn’t taste almond-y at all, just rich and luscious.
Note: If you’re baking for someone with a nut allergy, simply omit the almond flour and add an extra quarter-cup of all-purpose flour plus a bit of cornstarch.
Tools make it even easier
These cookies are meant to be small, so we don’t want big two-tablespoon dollops of dough. Use a single tablespoon, or the smallest cookie scoop. Because they don’t spread much, I like to flatten them into round disks, using the bottom of a drinking glass. If you prefer rounder cookies, leave them as-is.
To make the indent for the jam, you can certainly use your thumb, but I find that’s not a good fit for everyone. Particularly if you’ve been growing out your nails during quarantine. You can choose any tool that will create a fairly wide, shallow indent, such as the back of a teaspoon. I use the end of a wide-handled wooden spoon. I like to make a fairly wide indentation to hold an adequate amount of jam – a heaping half-teaspoon is just right.
Don’t fear the cracks
If your dough cracks when you flatten it, and you really want smooth edges, simply pinch the cracks back together! The dough is moist enough to make this easy. I am lazy and cannot be bothered with perfection in cookies, so I tend to leave them as they fall. It makes zero difference to their deliciousness.
Customize with your favorite jam
I love the sweet, bright, honey-like flavor of fig jam (this is the one I use) paired with the orange and cardamom. There’s just something really festive and magical about that combination at the holidays. Feel free, though, to use other jams according to your taste. I tried orange marmalade and a cranberry-cherry jelly and both were divine. Orange or lemon curd would also be delightful. Just make sure you choose a jam or jelly containing pectin. Conserve-type jams, which often lack thickeners, can leak through and make your cookies soggy. No one likes a soggy bottom.
This recipe makes a lot of cookies – more than four dozen – but I predict you’re going to want to have enough to share. Or at least enough to last you through this final (blessedly final) month of 2020.
Looking for more high altitude holiday cookie recipes? Try one of these classic faves:
- Dark Chocolate Peppermint Shortbread
- High Altitude Gingerbread Cookies
- Easy High Altitude Sugar Cookies
- High Altitude Hot Cocoa Crinkle Cookies
Easy High Altitude Orange Cardamom Fig Thumbprint Cookies
- Prep Time: 20 mins
- Cook Time: 12 mins
- Total Time: 32 mins
- Yield: about 50 cookies 1x
Description
Tender, buttery, and flavored with orange, fig, and plenty of holiday spice, these Easy High Altitude Orange Cardamom Fig Thumbprint Cookies are a festive version of the wintertime classic.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg + 1 egg yolk
- 1 tsp freshly grated orange zest
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 cup almond flour – not almond meal (see Notes for making these nut-free)
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp cardamom, freshly-ground if possible
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
- 1/2 cup fig jam (or other jam of your choice)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer (or a medium bowl, using a hand mixer), combine the sugar and butter and cream until very light and fluffy, about three minutes. Add the eggs and mix to combine. Stir in the orange zest.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, almond flour, salt, and spices. Slowly add to the butter mixture and continue to mix until the dough transforms from crumbly to cohesive.
- Using a small cookie scoop or tablespoon, scoop balls of dough onto your baking sheets, leaving an inch or two between each. Flatten each ball into a disk shape (I use the bottom of a drinking glass for this), and then create a wide, hollow indent with your thumb or other tool, such as the handle of a wooden spoon or the back of a teaspoon. Place a heaping half-teaspoon of jam inside each indent.
- Bake cookies for 12-14 mins, until the bottoms are just golden brown. Let cool on cookie sheets for about five minutes until the cookies are set (they may crumble if you move them sooner), then transfer to a wire rack to cool fully.
Store in an airtight container for up to a week. If stacking cookies in layers, separate the layers with sheets of parchment to avoid sticking.
Notes
… Be sure you use almond flour (often labeled “blanched). Almond meal is similar in that it is made of ground almonds, but it contains the skins and has a rougher consistency.
… If you’re baking for someone with a nut allergy, omit the almond flour and add an extra 1/4 cup of all-purpose flour plus 1 tsp cornstarch.
… when choosing your jam, be sure to use a variety that contains pectin, a thickener. Thinner conserve-style jams won’t set up as nicely and may bleed into your cookies.
… if you prefer not to use your thumb to make the indents, use the end of a wide-handled serving spoon or the back of a teaspoon.
… if your dough balls split on the edges when you flatten them, simply pinch the cracks together.
So good! Such an easy, elegant recipe.
Thanks, Erin!
These turned out fabulous! Love the hint of cardamom spice and orange peel. A nice change from typical Christmas cookie fare. These will be in regular rotation from now on.
I’m so glad they worked out for you! They’re this year’s favorite in my family, too.