Stamped Cookies #10 - Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies (Stamped Cookies #10) - made dough October 26, 2021 from Beyond the Butter

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Hazelnut spread, cookie butter or any other filling of your choice

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder and salt; set aside.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the unsalted butter and granulated sugar on medium speed until well combined and fluffy. Beat in egg yolk and vanilla extract.
3. Add the dry ingredients in two additions, beating on low speed after each addition, until just combined.
4. Cover the dough tightly with plastic wrap and chill for at least an hour or more.
5. When ready to bake, roll out the dough to a 1/4-inch thickness onto a floured surface. If dough is too cold to roll out easily, let sit on kitchen counter for 15-20 minutes before rolling.
6. Lightly flour or sugar cookie stamps and stamp out cookies from rolled dough. Place in a single layer and freeze for 10 minutes. 
7. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Evenly space stamped cookies. Bake 10-12 minutes or until set. Remove from oven and let cookies cool on baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack to cool completely.
8. Once cookies are cool, place filling in Ziploc bag and seal. Depending on your filling, you may want to warm in microwave for 15 seconds to make piping more easy. Snip a corner of the ziploc bag and pipe filling into each indentation.

I first saw these thumbprint stamps from - where else - pinterest. I was immediately taken with them so, of course, I had to buy a set for myself. They're available at Williams Sonoma and, if you believe Williams Sonoma, only at Williams Sonoma. Link here. I'm not affiliated with Williams Sonoma and that isn't an affiliate link and I don't make any money on it if you click on it and buy or not buy. I just linked it in case anyone wants to look further into it; now you know where to get it.

My stamping skills still need some practice as you'll see from some of the pictures. Sometimes I didn't use enough dough and the cookie didn't fully form all the way to the edges. Sometimes I used a little too much dough and the cookies came out thick. Sometimes I used too little dough and the cookies were thin. If I baked thin and thick cookies on the same cookie sheet, the thinner cookies baked more than the thicker ones. 

But, to me, none of that matters. Yes, it'd be nice to have uniform perfection but it doesn't bother me if things don't look perfect. For one thing, taste is always more important to me than appearance. For another, baking as a hobby is for fun, not for commercial resale or perfection. So no matter how your baked goods turn out, have fun making them and sharing them. That's what it's about.

And I've been having a lot of fun with new cookie stamps and making pretty cookies. Chocolate dough can be a little more tricky to work with than non-chocolate dough. The cocoa powder makes for a more dry dough and if you chill this for too long, the dough crumbles more and is more difficult to work with.

Case in point, this dough was already so stiff when I finished mixing it that I ended up not needing to chill it before I formed it with the cookie stamps. I did liberally sugar the dough balls before I stamped the thumbprints and that helped prevent sticking.

As you can see, this held their shape really well. Don't overbake them as you want the texture to be soft and not crumbly. I used some dough to form into my other new cookie molds shown below (available on etsy). I was running out of dough so the cookies were a little thinner. 

You can see the heart cookie on the bottom left was a little misshapen after baking. I think I accidentally stretched that left side slightly when I (gingerly) got the dough out of the mold. Top left round wreath cookie was also a little thinner than the others as I ran out of dough so it baked a little more than the others did. Oh well :).