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Easy Gluten-Free Coconut Thumbprint Cookies that are made with less than 10 ingredients! by Lisa Lin of healthynibblesandbits.com
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Servings: 14 to 15 cookies
Author: Lisa Lin

Easy Gluten-Free Thumbprint Cookies

These tasty thumbprint cookies are inspired by the coconut chocolate thumbprints that I made from Kelly's Vegan Holiday Treats cookbook. While these cookies are not vegan (it's hard to find a good lemon curd that doesn't use egg yolks), they taste amazing. Feel free to fill the cookies with any jam, citrus curds, or chocolate that you have on hand! Makes 15 to 16 cookies
Prep Time25 minutes
Cook Time12 minutes

Ingredients

  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened at room temperature
  • 2 tablespoons unsweetened applesauce
  • 1/2 cup (105g) sugar
  • 1 cup (160g) gluten-free all-purpose flour*
  • 2/3 cup (80g) unsweetened shredded coconut, divided
  • 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 tablespoon black sesame seeds
  • jam
  • lemon curd, adapted from my lemon curd recipe

Instructions

  • Using an electric mixer on low speed, cream butter, applesauce and sugar until the butter is fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add flour, 1/3 cup of coconut, vanilla and salt and mix until a dough starts to form. You may end up with a very crumbly dough, and that's okay. Just gather the dough together with your hands. Freeze dough for 15 minutes or chill in refrigerator for 30 minutes.
  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone mats.
  • Mix remaining coconut and sesame seeds in a small bowl. Set aside.
  • Scoop out about 1 1/2 tablespoons of cookie dough using a medium cookie scoop or measuring spoons. Roll each bit of cookie dough into a ball and roll in the coconut-sesame mixture. Place all rolled cookie dough on prepared baking sheet, with about 1 1/2 inches of space in between. Flatten the cookie dough slightly and create a small indentation in the center. I used my pestle for this, but you can also use your thumb. Fill each indentation with 1/2 teaspoon of jam or lemon curd.
  • Bake cookies for 12 to 14 minutes, or until the bottoms start to brown. Let cookies cool on baking sheet for at least 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack. Cookies will firm up once they cool.
  • Store in a sealed container in room temperature for up to 2 days.

Notes

NUTRITION INFORMATION: Amount Per Cookie: Calories: 134, Total Fat 7.4g, Saturated Fat: 5.1g, Sodium: 42.7mg, Cholesterol: 12.2mg, Total Carbohydrate: 17g, Dietary Fiber: 1.8g, Sugar: 9g, Protein 1g
*For this recipe, I used the gluten-free all-purpose flour blend from America's Test Kitchen's How Can it be Gluten Free Cookbook. You can use Cup4Cup Gluten-Free flour. Alternatively, you can use regular flour or whole wheat pastry flour if you're not gluten free.
Did you make this recipe?Tag @hellolisalin or leave a star rating and comment on the blog!