Easy Swedish cookies: hallongrottor/ thumbprint with spelt flour
This is one of the most popular Swedish Cookie recipes. This easy melt-in-your-mouth Swedish cookie has a few names; hallongrottor which means Rasberry Cave Cookies or thumbprint cookies.
Sue Maree P style my cookie recipe is made with spelt flour and is made with simple ingredients and no eggs. I adapted a recipe from Fuzz & Buzz, swapped out the vanilla sugar for vanilla powder, and use white spelt flour instead of regular flour. This is a popular treat that is enjoyed for fika (coffee time) and is loved by young and old.
Takes = 30 minutes prep.
Chill Time = 30 minutes
Makes = 30 small cookies
Bakes = 10-15 minutes
Ingredients
- Spelt flour whisked or sifted – 270g (2 cups)
- Baking powder – 1 tsp
- Softened butter, unsalted if you have – 200g (1 cup)
- Powdered sugar, icing sugar – 100g (1/2 cup)
- Vanilla powder or extract* – 1 teaspoon
- Raspberry jam, or your choice – 1/4 cup*
Method
Step 1
Line baking trays with baking paper.
Step 2
Whisk flour and baking powder in a large bowl.
Step 3
Cream butter, powdered sugar and vanilla until creamy. Add in the flour and combine with your hands to form the cookie dough. Chill in the fridge for 30 minutes it will be better for rolling the cookies. Get the oven ready by preheating the oven now without a fan. 175˚C, 350˚F.
Step 4
Roll into 30 balls about 20g each. Press your thumb into the centre to make an indent for the jam, spelt flour is prone to cracking, don't worry push them together slightly they will still taste great. Add about 1/2 small teaspoon of jam per cookie.
Step 5
Bake the cookies until just golden 10-15 minutes, be careful not to overcook. In my video, the first tray was a little too golden but they still tasted great. Rest the cookies for 10 minutes before removing them from the baking tray. Store in a sealed container for up to 7 days.
Sue Maree P Baking Tips
- Sugar – you could use granulated sugar however, this will make the cookies crisper and less melt-in-your-mouth
- Flour – swap out white Spelt flour for all-purpose flour
- Butter – if you prefer non-dairy butter this would also work fine.
- Vanilla sugar vs vanilla extract – the traditional recipe includes 1 tablespoon of vanilla sugar, I wanted to make this more universal and swapped it for vanilla powder/extract, as vanilla sugar is hard to buy in some countries like Australia and the UK.
- Jam – I added less jam than most other recipes, only 1/4 tsp per cookie