I made these once with a friend’s amazing slowcooker raspberry jam. This time I had strawberry jam I really wanted to use up, not extra special gifted stuff, so I felt a whole lot better about using it in another cooking process rather than appreciating it for its essential beauty. This time I also made them with buckwheat flour and brown rice flour, to give a more grainy texture and an intentionally denser cookie. I also used date paste instead of honey, but then had to add a little maple syrup after testing the batter because it was pretty flat sugar-wise. And since the cookies don’t need to rise much its a good recipe for substitutions (flour, eggs, sugars), which is music to a lactose-intolerant, gluten-intolerant person’s heart.
Gluten-free Strawberry Jam Thumbprint Cookies
1/4 cup earth balance or oil (flavoured is great – walnut, hazelnut, sunflower, even olive – but canola or vegetable works too if that’s all you have)
1/2 cup date paste (or light brown sugar, firmly packed; or white sugar plus 2 tsp molasses)
2-3 tbsp maple syrup
1 tbsp rum or 1/2 tsp rum extract (or vanilla extract), optional
3/4 cup buckwheat flour
3/4 cup brown rice flour
1 tbsp ground flaxseed
1/2 tsp guar gum (or xanthan gum)
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup jam, any flavour
Preheat oven to 350F. Grease 2 baking sheets or line with parchment. Cream oil, date paste, and maple syrup in a large bowl with an electric beater until smooth. Add the rum and blend to combine. In a second bowl sieve the flours. Add the flaxseeds, guar gum, baking soda and salt and whisk to combine. Whisk dry ingredients slowly into wet ingredients. Change to a large wooden spoon when it gets too sticky to whisk.
If the dough is sticky, sieve over a bit more rice flour (or other flour) – about 2 tbsp – and stir until incorporated. Add more if needed. Form into 20 balls and place on the baking sheets. Press your thumb into them (hence “thumbprint cookies”) to make a deep valley. The cookies won’t spread in the oven, so don’t worry about them needing more room. Don’t add the jam now! Only a foolish baker like me would do that. There’s no need to overbake the already cooked jam…
Bake for 10 minutes. Remove to wire rack to cool. Now spoon jam into the centre of each cookie. I like more on the 1 cup side, especially when I want every mouthful to taste like jam than cookie.
Makes about 20 cookies.
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