📋 Thumbprint Butter Tart Cookies

Butter tart cookies on parchment paper, with one split in half and filling oozing out. and black coffee mug in the background.

4.75 from 4 votes

📋 Thumbprint Butter Tart Cookies

These Butter Tart Thumbprint Cookies are filled with ooey gooey rich butter tart filling, nestled in a pecan sugar cookie. If you don't love raisins, you can easily substitute pecans in the filling. But if you love butter tarts, you will love this scrumptious cookie with an easy butter tart filling!

Course cookies, Dessert, Snack

Cuisine Canadian

Keyword butter tart, cookie, thumbprint cookie

Special Diet Vegetarian

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 35

Total Time 1 45

Servings cookies

Calories 130kcal

Author Terri Gilson

Equipment

Ingredients

Cookie dough ingredients:

¾ cup sugar
¾ cup butter
3 eggs
¾ cup ground pecans * if you cannot find ground pecans, just use chopped pecans and grind them in the food processor
¾ teaspoon baking powder
2 ½ cups flour

Butter tart filling ingredients:

1 tablespoon unsalted butter + 1 tsp
½ teaspoon vanilla
¾ cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoon whipping cream (heavy cream)
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 teaspoon cornstarch
2 tablespoon raisins *pecans can be substituted -finely chopped

US Customary - Metric

Get Recipe Ingredients

Instructions

Cookie dough:

In large bowl, with an electric mixer on low speed, cream butter and sugar until combined
¾ cup sugar, ¾ cup butter
Add eggs and mix well.
3 eggs
In a separate mixing bowl, add flour, ground pecans and baking powder together.
¾ teaspoon baking powder, 2 ½ cups flour, ¾ cup ground pecans
Add the butter mixture to the flour mixture using a wooden spoon until it becomes too stiff to continue, then use your hands to mix the dough together until it's completely incorporated.
Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 1 hour

Butter tart Filling:

In small pot on stove top, add vanilla and whipping cream, heat, then add butter.
½ teaspoon vanilla, 2 tablespoon whipping cream (heavy cream), 1 tablespoon unsalted butter + 1 tsp
In a medium bowl, combine egg, and brown sugar.
1 egg, ¾ cup brown sugar
Add egg mixture to warm cream mixture and simmer on low, then add vinegar and cornstarch. Add raisins here.
1 teaspoon vinegar, 1 teaspoon cornstarch, 2 tablespoon raisins
Keep whisking until thickened on med-low heat for about 10-15 minutes. It should be the consistency of gravy. Remove from heat and set aside to cool. After 10 minutes, refrigerate.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray a baking sheet with non stick cooking spray.

Assembly:

Roll dough into 1 " (approximately) balls. If the dough feels sticky, make sure you have some flour nearby to flour your hands as needed.
Press the bottom of a wooden spoon (dipped in flour) or use your thumb to make an indent into center of ball of dough.
Press outside edges of cookie with a floured fork, as you would around the edge of a pie.
Bake for 10-14 minutes until golden brown on the bottom
As soon as the cookies are out of the oven, use your thumb or the bottom of a floured wooden spoon to reinforce indent in cookie.
Continue to cool on rack for 5 minutes
Store in fridge for a week or freeze for up to 3 months

Notes

Expert Recipe Tips:

Use room-temperature butter for the dough. It creams more evenly with the sugar, giving you a smoother, more cohesive cookie base.
Grind pecans very finely for the dough. Larger pieces prevent the dough from binding properly and can cause crumbling.
Don’t skip the full 1-hour chill time. Chilling firms the butter, prevents spreading, and keeps your thumbprints deep and defined.
Make the indent with the end of a floured wooden spoon instead of your thumb. This helps you create uniform, crack-resistant impressions in every cookie.
Widen the indent slightly by gently rotating the spoon.outward. This prevents the filling from overflowing or sitting too tall.
Only fill the cookies with cooled, thickened filling. Warm filling will run, soak into the cookie, and lose that classic butter tart texture.
Add the filling while the cookies are still warm. The heat softens the top layer so the filling settles smoothly into the centre.
Reinforce the thumbprint the moment the cookies come out of the oven. They puff slightly during baking, and this quick step keeps your filling well-seated.
If your dough feels sticky when rolling, dust your hands lightly with flour. Adding flour directly to the dough can make the cookies tough.
Bake on the middle rack only. This ensures even browning on the bottom without overbaking the tops.
Cook the filling until it reaches a gravy-like consistency. Under-cooked filling won’t set properly in the cookie, and over-cooked filling turns grainy.
Avoid pressing the indent too deep. A very thin bottom can cause leaking and the cookie may break once filled.
Freeze the cookies unstacked before storing. Flash-freezing keeps the filling intact so the cookies don’t stick or smudge when layered.

To chill or not to chill cookie dough

HEADS UP: There is chilling time involved in this recipe, so you need to budget for it. But if you find you are asking yourself, "Do I really need to chill cookie dough?" "What's the worst that could happen?" Well, I'm here to tell you that, "yes, you do need to chill" or your cookies will spread way too much and they won't be nearly as good or as nice looking. I know this because I am impatient and I tried it. That's also my job as a recipe tester.

So I am pretty sure you will want to budget that extra hour. However, if you're still on the fence and need more convincing, read this article: To chill or not to chill - that is the question!

Variations & Substitutions:

Raisins: If you are not a fan of raisin butter tarts, you can easily substitute pecans.
Ground pecans: You can substitute ground almonds for ground pecans.
Leftover butter tart filling: use your leftover butter tart filling to make these cookies!
Brown sugar - you can use dark brown sugar or light brown sugar for this recipe
Lactose-free- I used lactose- free butter and whipping cream in these cookies. Lactania has a lactose-free whipping cream.

Nutrition