Runeberg’s thumbprint cookies

Soon it’s again my favorite time of the year! February 5th marks the anniversary of Runeberg, a very important Finnish poet. If you’ve followed this blog (under a different name) for a while, you might remember this character, but here’s a link to a post explaining about this great poet.

In his honor a delicious pastry, Runebergintorttu, is available in shops only during this time of the year, meaning from January to the beginning of February. Discover the story of who created this recipe and why in the link above ↟

I created this Runeberg’s cake some time ago, and it is still delicious. But you know me, I love to develop new recipes and revisit old classics, so I created another version for this Finnish winter classic.

This time I made these Runeberg’s thumbprint cookies.

Did you know? Thumbprint cookies have a Nordic origin. Also called “hallongrotta”, raspberry cave in Swedish, it seems these cookies were created in Sweden (or Poland, records are unclear). What about the English name? Well, it comes from the preparation of these little treats. As it happens, once the dough is rolled into a ball, the cookies are pressed with a thumb in the middle to create a little cave that will be then filled with jams or chocolate.

Let’s go to the recipe!

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Runeberg's thumbprint cookies

These thumbprint cookies were created as a variation of the traditional "Runebergintorttu", a very traditional Finnish pastry named after the famous poet.

Prep Time15 mins

Cook Time13 mins

Cooling time30 mins

Total Time28 mins

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Nordic

Keyword: gingerbread, raspberry cookies, runeberg, thumbprint cookies

Serves: 15 cookies

Author: Thais FK

Ingredients

Cookie dough:

• 90 g gingerbread cookies *
• 50 g salted butter at room temperature
• 1 egg
• 2 tbsp (30 g) granulated sugar
• 80 g coarse flour
• 40 g almond flour
• ¼ tsp bitter almond

Filling:

• Raspberry jam
• 2 tbsp powdered sugar
• Water

Instructions

• In a blender, reduce into powder the gingerbread biscuits.
• Whisk the butter, the egg and the sugar until they will form a smooth and fluffy cream.
• Add the bitter almond and whisk.
• Add the flours and the biscuits and mix well with a spatula.
• Cover a baking sheet with baking paper. Take about one tablespoon from the dough, roll it into a ball and place it on the baking sheet. Repeat the procedure until you won’t have any dough left.
• Press your thumb into the middle of each biscuit, in order to form a cake.
• Chill the biscuits in freezer from a minimum of 10 minutes to half an hour.
• Preheat the oven at 180°C/360F.
• Bake the cookies for 13 minutes. Chill.
• Fill the chilled cookies with the raspberry jam.
• Mix the powdered sugar and few drops of water to obtain the sugar icing.
• Pipe the icing around the jam with a piping bag and very tiny nozzle.

Notes

* If you don't have gingerbread biscuits, substitute them with digestive cookies and add 2 g of cinnamon, 1 g of cardamom, 0,5 g of cloves and 0,5 g of nutmeg.

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