Baking holiday cookies has always been something of a competition for me. It’s not enough for my cookies to taste good; I need them to take home the grand (imaginary) prize of being the most impressive cookie at the cookie swap. To guarantee a win, I’ve leaned on decorative icings, sparkling dragées, and recipes that include multiple doughs in a spectrum of hues. I look for cookies that are bright, colorful, and guaranteed to stand out on a crowded table—like these new tutti-frutti thumbprints. This Technicolor cookie recipe was created specifically for those looking to make a splash.
Still, it’s totally doable—the cookie relies on two ingredients that can be mixed-and-matched however you like to create an array of fruity flavors and an unabashed burst of color. Your cookie boxes have never had more fun.
To make the thumbprints, you’ll mix up a simple shortbread-like dough of butter, flour, egg yolks, and powdered sugar and portion into balls. Arrange the balls on a sheet tray and press down into the center of each ball with your thumb to make an indent. (This is where the jam will go. But hold off for now!)
As the cookies bake, you’ll call our first essential mix-and-match ingredient—freeze-dried fruit—into action. In the bowl of a food processor or the base of a blender, combine one package of freeze-dried fruit and half a cup of granulated sugar. Process until the fruit is completely broken down into a dust and the sugar is tinted a vibrant hue. When the cookies are baked but still slightly warm, you’ll toss them into the colorful sugar mixture one by one to coat them in the fruit sugar. The sugar will adhere to the outside of the cookies and change them from a pale golden color to a vibrant fruity hue.
Freeze-dried raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, and mango are my favorites to use, both from a color and flavor standpoint. These all stain the outsides of the cookies in bold colors ranging from deep indigo to pale yellow and lend each bite a pop of fruity flavor. Sometimes I combine two or more different fruits to create one coating reminiscent of the Italian multicolored confection of candied fruits (hence the name, tutti-frutti). The true fun is using a wide variety of fruits to create multiple sugar mixtures, so you end up with a rainbow of cookies from just one batch of dough.
We’re not done yet. Jam is the second ingredient that guarantees your cookie swap domination. But not just one jar of jam: a whole army of fruit fillings. To drive home the tutti-frutti concept and allow for even more variety within your batch of cookies, fill each divot with whatever fruit filling you desire. Berry jams, peach jelly, citrus preserves, curds of any flavor, and your favorite fruit spreads are all fair game for becoming the jewel-like filling in the the indents of your cookies.
If you’re after a monochromatic look, pair cookies tossed in freeze-dried strawberries with strawberry jam and blueberry with blueberry. If an eclectic array of cookies is more your speed, mix-and-match the fillings to create a true tutti-frutti experience. Just about any combination will taste good—I’ve eaten a lot of these to make sure—and however you decide to coat and fill these cookies, they’re bound to be more colorful (and clearly better) than anything else at the cookie swap. You win!
