Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies
These double chocolate thumbprint cookies feature a rich chocolate base filled with smooth, creamy ganache.
Servings: 32 cookies
Calories: 120kcal
Ingredients
For the cookies
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ cup cocoa powder
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
For the dark chocolate ganache
- ½ cup heavy cream
- 4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate (finely chopped and from a bar not chocolate chips)
- ½ ounce semi-sweet chocolate (finely chopped, to decorate)
Instructions
Cookies
- In a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, cornstarch, baking powder and salt until fully combined.
- In a large mixing bowl, add the butter and sugar. Beat until smooth and creamy then add the egg and beat again until fully combined.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and use a rubber spatula to fold together until a soft dough has formed.
- Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Use your hands or a cookie scoop to pull off sections from the dough. Roll into small balls the size of a tablespoon and set them on the baking sheets leaving some space in between. Use your thumb to press an indent into the center of each dough ball.
- Put the baking sheets with the prepared cookies into the refrigerator for 30 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Place the baking sheets onto the middle shelf of the oven and bake for 10 minutes.
- Remove from the oven and allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack. Use a measuring spoon to gently press the indents back into shape.
Ganache filling
- Put the finely chopped chocolate into a heatproof bowl. Pour the cream into a small saucepan set over medium heat. As soon as the cream starts to steam and form tiny bubbles remove it from the heat and pour it over the chopped chocolate.
- Put a plate on top of the bowl and leave it for 5 minutes.
- After 5 minutes gently stir the cream and chocolate until smooth. It should look like a glossy, thick ganache (if not see notes for troubleshooting ganache).
- Transfer the ganache to a piping bag and cut the end off with scissors. Fill each cookie with the ganache.
- To decorate, scatter over the chopped chocolate or add festive sprinkles.
Notes
- Be sure to use spooned and leveled flour. Do not scoop your measuring cup into the flour or risk the flour becoming compacted. If this recipe has too much flour, the cookies will become dry and crumbly. If you’d like to weigh your flour, it should be 187.5 grams.
- We recommend Dutch-processed cocoa powder, as it tastes smoother and more mellow than other cocoa powders. This, combined with the semi-sweet chocolate ganache, is a match made in heaven for dark chocolate lovers. If you are not the biggest fan of semi-sweet chocolate, you can make the ganache with milk chocolate instead.
- Remember to leave some space between your cookies on the baking sheets, as they will spread slightly when baking.
- It’s important to chill the dough before baking, or it will spread too much.
- Pressing the indent into the dough adds a little bit of memory to the dough. It will puff up, but you can easily press it down once baked. We press the cookies before and after they’re baked, as this helps to eliminate cracking.
Ganache tips:
- We recommend you use a bar of high-quality chocolate for the ganache instead of
chocolate chips or baking chips. A finely chopped bar of chocolate is more likely to melt at an even rate and will result in a better ganache. - When heating the cream for the ganache, it’s important not to overheat it. If your milk is too hot, the ganache can split.
- If your chocolate hasn’t melted completely, put the bowl on top of a saucepan filled with an inch of water and allow it to melt. Do not overheat it, or it might split.
- If your ganache does split (e.g., it looks greasy, watery or grainy), it is salvageable, so don’t panic. Try the following:
- Heat the bowl over a Bain Marie as described above;
- If that doesn’t work, whisk the ganache vigorously until it comes back together;
- If that doesn’t work, remove the ganache from the heat, add one teaspoon of room-temperature milk or water, and whisk it in until the ganache comes together.
