Tamarind And Lime Thumbprint Cookies Recipe

Thumbprints filled with fruit jam are a classic among holiday cookie recipes, perhaps because they're really quite simple to make. Developer A.J. Forget's recipe "brings a Caribbean flair" to the old-school dessert, and he assures any thumbprint purists out there that "the combination of a tangy, tamarind-lime curd with a buttery, allspice-infused cookie is just a perfect mouthful."

If you're wondering where on earth you're going to find tamarind-lime curd, the answer is that you'll be making it yourself in part one of this two-part recipe. You'll need to source some tamarind paste, which Forget says is "an ingredient that's prevalent in many cuisines but not particularly common in a lot of kitchens in the U.S." (Find it where Latin, Thai, or Indian groceries are sold.) With a sweet and sour flavor that pairs perfectly with the spiced cookie, this key ingredient will surprise and delight anyone used to a standard peanut butter chocolate thumbprint cookie recipe.

To make that homemade curd, you're going to need coconut oil, eggs, sugar, salt, tamarind paste, and limes — here you'll be using just the juice, but the zest will go into the cookies. Additional ingredients needed for the cookies include flour, baking powder, allspice, butter, and vanilla extract.

Stir all of the ingredients for the curd until they're well combined, then cook the mixture over low heat. "The most important thing," says Forget, "is to ensure slow, even heating." Otherwise, the curd could overcook and end up resembling scrambled eggs. To avoid this, keep stirring as you cook and use a candy thermometer if you've got one.

Once the curd reaches 165 F, it should have thickened up to an almost pudding-y consistency. At this point, turn off the heat, then strain the curd to get out any bits of lime pulp or tamarind seed. Stick it in the fridge to cool while you make the cookies.

Preheat the oven to 350 F, then mix the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, and allspice) with the lime zest. Use a separate bowl to cream the sugar with the butter, eggs, and vanilla extract. (Forget likes to use a handheld electric mixer for this step.) Add the butter mixture to the dry ingredients, stirring until you have a dough. Pick up the dough and work it a bit with your hands on a clean surface, then gather it into a ball.

To shape the thumbprints, pinch off a piece of dough that's roughly the size of a big marble. (This recipe makes 32 cookies, so you could just divide the dough in half, then in half again, and so on until you reduce it down to 32 pieces.) Take each dough piece and roll it into a sphere, then put it on a cookie sheet and stick your thumb in the middle to make an indentation for the curd.

Once you've shaped and dented all of the dough, divide the curd up between the cookies, plopping a spoonful right in the thumbprint.

Bake the cookies for 15-20 minutes. When done, they'll appear toasted on the bottom (pry them up with a spatula to check) but will still look a bit soft on the top.

Let the thumbprints cool off a bit before serving them with your favorite beverage — Forget likes to eat these with a glass of cold coconut milk, although dairy milk, coffee, tea, or limeade would pair nicely, too. Planning a gathering? Forget says "these cookies would fit in perfectly both at Grandma's cookie swap and after a beachside meal of callaloo and jerk chicken." And if you want to keep the sweet and sour theme going, why not serve these after a plate of homemade tamarind-honey shrimp?

Leftovers? The cookies should remain fresh for a week at room temperature in an airtight container, but they can be frozen for about a month if you won't be eating them so quickly.