These tasty Red, White & Blue Thumbprint Cookies are all dressed up with the prettiest patriotic colored sprinkles and icing for a festive celebration.
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Cookie Alert! These bite-sized cookies are buttery, crunchy, very addictive, and maybe the most colorful cookies ever!
Thumbprint cookies are a classic and today's recipe is covered in lots of colorful bling for a very patriotic cookie to celebrate July 4th, Memorial Day, or any day you want a delicious and colorful treat.
I have a fondness for these July thumbprints and I also make them in red and pink for Valentine's Day Thumbprint Cookies for my sweetie, and these Apricot Jam Thumbprint Cookies are delicious anytime, but they always show up during the holidays.
And, if you want more 4th of July cookies both of these cookie recipes are fun, festive, and delicious. Bake these 4th of July Sugar Cookies Bars or these rolled Sugar Cookies with Sprinkles that have a surprise red cookie in the middle.
❤️Why we love these cookies
- Seriously, it's the sprinkles and the colorful icing that have us hooked.
- You gotta love an easy cookie recipe and this one has a no-fuss batter, with simple pantry ingredients made in one bowl.
- No chilling is required to make these cookies, just mix, roll into balls, roll in sprinkles, bake, and ice.
- These tasty cookies are buttery rich and have the perfect amount of sweetness.
- These are definitely a celebration cookie, and you can easily change the sprinkles and icing colors to make your event or holiday extra special.
Cookie Ingredients
How To Make Thumbprint Cookies: Step-By-Step
I promise you won't be in the kitchen all day making these cookies, and you get to play with sprinkles!
Step 1. Set your oven to 350 degrees F. prepare a cookie sheet pan with parchment paper.
Step 2. In a large mixing bowl add the softened butter, egg yolk, sugar, and vanilla and mix with a handheld mixer on medium speed until thoroughly combined. You can also mix this dough with a stand mixer.
Step 3. Add the flour and salt and mix at low speed until the flour is incorporated. Scrape the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
Step 4. Pour the sprinkles into a large bowl that will be big enough to roll the dough balls around.
Step 5. With a small cookie scoop or a tablespoon, scoop out the dough and then roll the dough into 1" balls between the palms of your hands. Immediately after making the dough ball, roll it in the sprinkles bowl and place it on the cookie sheet.
It is important that you make the dough balls one at a time and roll them in the sprinkles. The sprinkles will only stick to the dough balls when they are warm and sticky from rolling the dough with your hands. If you let the dough balls sit too long, they will cool and harden, and the sprinkles will not stick, and you will have bald cookie dough balls.
Step 6. Repeat making the sprinkle-covered dough balls, and then using a teaspoon measuring spoon, press down on the center of each cookie to make an indent. To do this the old-fashioned way just press your thumb into the dough ball to create the indentation.
Step 7. Bake the cookies for 10 minutes, remove them from the oven and transfer them to a cooling rack. Sometimes the indentation will not be as deep once the cookies are baked; press the teaspoon back into the indent to deepen it again.
Make the icing
Step 8. Make the icing by mixing the powdered sugar, corn syrup, and milk together in a medium-sized bowl.
Step 9. Separate the icing into three small bowls, usually about ⅓ cup for each bowl. Add a drop of the red food coloring to one bowl and the blue food coloring to another bowl, and leave one bowl just white. Mix the food coloring into the white icing, and if needed add more food coloring to get the color you want.
Step 10. Once the cookies are completely cooled, use a small spoon to drop the icing into the cavity of each cookie.
Step 11. Let the cookies sit for an hour to harden the icing. Store in an airtight container for five days.
Celebrating with cookies
More delicious cookies
- Cookies with sprinkles are always a favorite and these Raspberry Sprinkle Cookies have a surprise middle layer to make these extra fun to eat.
- These favorite Ginger Spice Cookies have three types of ginger for a deliciously chewy cookie
- Try these Easy Raspberry Peach Crumb Bar that is buttery, fruity and so easy to make.
- These cookies are part of 15 Favorite 4th of July Desserts post. Check it out for some fabulous red, white, and blue desserts.
Not cookies, but just as colorful. These Red, White & Blue Jello Cups are ridiculously easy to make and are perfect for serving with these cookies.
If the cookie dough cracks after you put the thumbprint in it, just take your fingers and press the dough back together again.
Even though these cookies are called thumbprints because you are supposed to use your thumb to make an indent, I find using the teaspoon to make the deep indent easier and prettier. But for fun, make a few with your thumb!
You can freeze the baked and iced cookies in an airtight freezer container. If you are stacking the cookies, place a piece of parchment or wax paper between the layers. To defrost, set the cookie out in a single layer.
Thank Sweden for these delectable thumbprint cookies. They call them Hallongrotta, which is traditionally filled with jam.
Equipment needed
- Large mixing bowl
- Hand-held mixer (or a stand mixer)
- Measuring cups
- Measuring spoons
- Cookie scoop - tablespoon size
- Medium-sized bowl
- Small whisk or fork
- Three small bowls
- Cookie sheets
More To Make And Eat
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Recipe
Patriotic Red, White & Blue Thumbprint Cookies
Ingredients
- ½ cup butter softened
- ¼ cup light brown sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 11/2 tsp. vanilla
- 1 cup AP flour
- ¼ tsp. salt
- 5 ounces red, white and and blue sprinkles
Powdered sugar icing
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons milk
- 1 tablespoons light corn syrup
- red gel food color
- blue gel food coloring
Instructions
Making cookie dough
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F., and prepare cookie sheets parchment paper or a Silpat
- In a large mixing bowl add the softened butter, sugar, egg yolk, and vanilla and mix with a handheld mixer on medium speed until completely mixed and creamy. Scrape the bowl with a rubber spatula. You can also use a stand mixer for this.
- Mix in the flour and salt at low speed until combined and the dough holds its shape.
- Place the nonpareils in a bowl big enough to roll the dough balls.
- Shape the dough into 1" balls using a small cookie scoop or a tablespoon, then immediately roll in the nonpareils. The warmth of your hands helps make the dough balls a little soft so the nonpareils will stick better.
- Place the balls 1" apart on the baking sheets and using a teaspoon measuring spoon press and indent into each cookie. You can also use your thumb to make the indent.
- Bake for 10 minutes until lightly browned, then remove from oven to cooling rack.
Making the powdered sugar icing
- Add the powered sugar to a medium-sized bowl and use a small whisk or a fork to break up any lumps in the sugar.
- Add the milk and corn syrup then mix until the icing is smooth.
- Separate the icing into three small bowls, about ⅓ cup of each. Add a drop of red food coloring to one bowl, blue food coloring to another bowl then stir until the food coloring is combined. If you want a deeper color add a small amount of food color and stir.Now you have red, white and blue icing colors.
- With a small teaspoon drop icing into each cookies thumbprint. It usually takes about an hour for the icing to harden, at this point store the cookies in an airtight container for up to four day.
Notes
Try this other One Hot Oven Thumbprint Cookies Valentine's Day Thumbprints in red, pink and white, they are so pretty! Apricot Pecan Thumbprints are classic cookie to bake for the holidays.
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Nutrition
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About Jere’
From learning to cook on a farm in Indiana to culinary school in California, my passion for food is never-ending. Turning on my oven to bake something for friends and family is my happy place, and I am glad to be here at One Hot Oven, sharing sweet and savory recipes with all my baking friends.
Nora
I love these deliciously colorful cookies! They look so delicious! Just the thing to celebrate! Thanks for sharing!
AISilva
Love the look of these cookies. My kids would have so much fun with them. Thanks for the recipe!
Kate
These cookies look really delicious. I'm already in love and need to try them very soon indeed.
Bernice
Great looking cookies! So bright and cheerful...
Debbie
These Patriotic thumbprint cookies are not only adorable they are delicious. So simple but so good. I made these to celebrate my husbands birthday but they will be making an appearance next weekend at our Memorial Day BBQ. Thanks for a great recipe.
Jere Cassidy
So glad you enjoyed these cookies. They really are adorable and definitely delicious.
Cathleen
These cookies are exactly what I am looking for! This is my first 4th of July in the US, so I am going to try to celebrate it RIGHT! And this looks perfect!!
Jere Cassidy
Well, you need to have a big celebration. I hope you get to see some spectacular fireworks, have a bbq and enjoy some tasty cookies.
Ramona
These cookies look so delicious and I am dying to try to make them! I love the vibrant colours and overall they look super pretty. Thank you for sharing this recipe!
Tristin
These are the cutest cookies and will be so perfect for the 4th of July!
veenaazmanov
This is so cute and innovative. Love to try it out for some celebration. Awesome presentation too. I love Buttery cookies.
Linda
What a wonderful treat! Love the color and how delicious they look. Can't wait to bake more cookies
Sandhya Ramakrishnan
These are so beautiful looking patriotic cookies. I am so going to bake these over the weekend. Already wrote down the sprinkles in my shopping list.
Gunjan
Such a beautiful patriotic cookies. I tried them and came out so well. It’s on my dessert list for July 4th.
Aditi Bahl
I just had to try this, so I did and my kids went bonkers over it. They loved it. They were all gone in minutes. I made a small batch of course, but am making this soon again.
Heidy
Patriotic Red, White, and Blue Thumbprint Cookies came out perfect and looked adorable! I wanted to test them before we do our Memorial Day gathering, and they made the must-have list for a holiday gathering!!!
Silvia Martinez
These thumbprint cookies look so festive and I bet are delicious. I just added them to my 4th of July menu, they are going to be a hit I'm sure.