Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Gummy Bear Thumbprint Cookies

   Valentines day is coming up! And how better to celebrate than the making of cute little cookies to share with friends and family? And the perfect part? They are sweet and fruity, unlike the subtle tangy-ness of my nerds cupcakes I made last week. The actual heart shape idea came from a Beautiful Mess, and the recipe itself came from The Baking Robot. The only (visible) difference between the two recipes is that a Beautiful Mess made half of the original recipe and created hearts instead of the original thumbprint shapes in the dough.





   Oh, and on another note: do not buy the 2 lbs bag of gummy bears unless you snack excessively, or make 2-4 batches of these cookies. I thought it would be enough....well, it is more than enough! Good thing Macy and I like Gummy bears, and I will also have enough if they and up being a hit at school. 




   I probably made more shapes with the gummy bears than actually baked with them, but that is alright! If making the original thumbprint cookies, a whole gummy bear will be placed in the cookie cavity, but the heart ones use two halves. 

   In the spirit of Valentines day, I made heart cookies and mixed flavors of gummy bears; half one color, half a different color. The shape in the cookies takes a bit to master too, because the dough puffs up a little when baking. Some hearts turned out really good....others have a nice jellybean shape. Either way, they taste amazing!!




   If you are talented enough, you can make different shapes in the cookies! I had a hard enough time trying to make hearts, and definitely used my index finger instead of my thumb. The key to holding its shape is freezing the dough before and during the baking process. The longer the dough sits in the freezer, the more firm it will be and the better it will hold shape.

   Since I sell these at school, I used a portion scoop to get uniform cookies! but you can make them any size you want! The bigger the cookie, the more gummy bears you might have to use. I think it would be cool to see 3-4 different colors in a single cookie! The cookies themselves are very bland, sort of like a soft shortbread cookie, so the gummy bears add a perfect sugar-y taste to them!








Recipe: 

(Yield: about 2 dozen)

Ingredients:

1 cup Butter, soft
1/2 cup Brown Sugar, packed
2 Egg Yolks
1 tsp Vanilla
2 cups Flour
1/4 tsp Salt
2-3 dozen Gummy Bears

Recipe:

1. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in egg yolks one at a time, then beat in vanilla. Stir in flour and salt until everything is completely combined.
2. Cover bowl and refrigerate about 10 minutes and between baking (the leftover dough).
3. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F and grease a baking sheet or line with parchment paper.
4. Roll cookies , place on prepared baking sheet. Place remaining dough back into freezer into needed again. Use thumb to make a indent in the middle of the cookie, deep enough to add a gummy bear but not too deep to go all the way through or crack the dough.
5. Bake 8-10 minutes, or until almost done. Pull out of the oven and place 1 gummy bear in each cavity, then bake a remaining 2 minutes.
6. Remove cookies from hot sheet to cool on a cooling rack, the gummy bear middle will cool and take on its original texture. Enjoy!









Try this recipe? Tell me how it went below in the comments!
-Sophia




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