Simple thumbprint cookies. Very attractive, simple, and flavor that is somewhat unique. Beautiful displayed on a plate with other holiday cookies. These don’t last very long, but they also don’t keep well. Usually, I double this recipe because they disappear before I can finish baking them.
| Prep Time: | 30 mins |
| Cook Time: | 12 mins |
| Additional Time: | 30 mins |
| Total Time: | 1 hr 12 mins |
| Servings: | 36 |
| Yield: | 3 dozen cookies |
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup white sugar
- 2 tablespoons lime juice
- 1 tablespoon grated lime zest
- 1 egg
- 1 drop green food coloring, or as desired
- ⅓ cup butter, softened
- ¼ cup white sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 tablespoon confectioners’ sugar for dusting
Instructions
- Place 1/3 cup of sugar, the lime juice, lime zest, and 1 egg in a saucepan over low heat, and whisk constantly until the mixture almost reaches a simmer and begins to thicken. Remove the mixture from the heat, and tint to your desired shade of green with food coloring. Set the filling aside to cool.
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C).
- In a bowl, cream the butter with 1/4 cup of sugar, then stir in 1 egg and vanilla extract. Mix in the flour and salt until the dough is smooth. Roll dough into 1-inch balls. Arrange on an ungreased baking sheet, placing the balls about 2 inches apart. Use your thumb to make an indentation in the center of each dough ball. Spoon about 3/4 teaspoon of the lime filling into each.
- Bake in the preheated oven until the cookies are set but not browned, 12 to 15 minutes. Allow cookies to cool on baking sheet for 1 minute before removing to finish cooling on wire racks. When cookies are cool, sprinkle lightly with confectioners’ sugar.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 52 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 8 g |
| Cholesterol | 15 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 0 g |
| Protein | 1 g |
| Saturated Fat | 1 g |
| Sodium | 32 mg |
| Sugars | 4 g |
| Fat | 2 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
love it
Sorry, I did not care for the cookies. They came out tasteless and I followed the recipe carefully. However, The lime filling was delicious. I’ll probably make the filling again but use a different cookie recipe.
These are dangerous! They are bite-sized, so you just want to keep popping them into your mouth. The cookie and filling compliment each other nicely. I followed the recipe exactly, except added some extra lime zest we had to the cookie batter, which I saw some people mention in other reviews. Was testing these out for a cookie exchange coming up the week before Christmas. I will be making these for the cookie exchange. I ended up with about 30 cookies, which was more than I thought I would after reading other reviews. Will be keeping this recipe for years to come as we have lime trees and I didn’t know what to use all of the limes for…now I do!
Citrus was nice with shortbread. I whipped the butter and sugar for 4 minutes till it was fluffy. The shortbread melted in my mouth and wasn’t too sweet. Decided to double the zest in the filling and wished I had used zest in the cookie dough as well but…next time for more of a lime punch. Used Wilton’s Christmas Green food coloring but only touched 1/2 an inch of a toothpick to the coloring with no scooping action. That was all that was needed for me to get a lime-ish green. It was a nice color before adding the food coloring with the specks of zest so it could be omitted completely. The filling is sweet enough. Great with coffee and tea.
These are thumbprint cookies. As in bite size. I have never found them to be dry however I always use real butter and am careful when i sift and measure the flour. And i too add a drop of green food coloring to the filling.
Loved these cookies for my Christmas Cookie Tray! They are different and I love that these are a little bit tart so they balance out the other sweet cookies on my tray. I have not had any trouble with these keeping since I always freeze whatever cookies I’m not going to eat right away. I would recommend doubling the recipe as I get about 16 cookies if I do not double and these are always a hit with my family!
It’s good, but. The recipe does not make 36 for me, I got 22. I would add 1/4 cp. more sugar and double the recipe. I also used 1 stick butter not 1/3 cp. Squeeze an entire lime.
Yum! These are a great subtle cookie in a world of white chocolate macadamia pecan fudge madness. I doubled both the dough and filling recipe, and added a bit more butter to combat dryness I read in other reviews. Turned out with 49 cute little cookies that will be a nice summery treat at my potluck. Thanks for the recipe!
Pretty tasty cookies that are easy to make. I doubled the recipe and it made about 30 cookies. The cookie part could have been a bit moister but overall they are quite good.
Had some leftover limes and went looking for recipes. I’m not much of a cookie lover but the idea of lime cookies intrigued me. These really pleased me. Tasty dough, the lime taste is a good counterpoint, they’re pretty, and, best of all, fast. Thanks, Terre!
The filling was tasty, but the cookie dough came out hard and tasteless. I had to add water to the dough to keep it from crumbling. I would probably not make these again.
These are tasty and very pretty little cookies. I stress “little” because I believe their is a mistake in this recipe. It instructs the baker to use 2 TBSP of dough for each cookie. Those would be huge cookies, and come nowhere near the 36 servings indicated as other reviewers have mentioned. 2 tsp. is more like it. This amount of dough made 30 cookies, and each was filled nicely with the filling. I half expected the filling to spill over when baked, but it didn’t. I did use just one drop of food coloring and the color was just right. I am a little puzzled about the name of these as there is really nothing creamy about them. These would be a nice green dessert for St. Patrick’s Day, especially with a bit of green color added to the dough.
Loved this recipe!! i agree it makes about 12-16 cookie but they are delicious i added more lime just because my husband and i love lime! deff easy try them!! 🙂 thank you
The filling for this cookie is delicous. I will bake them again. But I must mention this recipe does not make 36 cookies, you get about 16 if you follow the directions. I recommend you double the cookie dough and keep the filling the same amount as stated. It turns out just right.