An Easy Strawberry Thumbprint Cookies Recipe That Kids Love
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Bake memories with your children this Christmas. Make batches of this easy Strawberry Thumbprint Cookies recipe and share with friends!
I love everything about Christmas, the weeks leading up to the day.
The welcoming smell of Strawberry Thumbprint Cookies, Sugar Cookies, Shortbread, and Chocolate Cookies wafting through the home, and the excitement to do fun projects as a family.
When we first moved into our neighborhood, we didn’t know any neighbors.
We decided to gift each home a platter filled with homemade cookies as Christmas drew near.
The kids love making sugar cookies because they love using the cookie cutters to make the cookie shapes,
and these Strawberry Thumbprint Cookies.
Why?
Because it’s just fun to make thumb depressions in dough and fill the same with strawberry preserves. 
My now 8-year-old was only 4 then and had to balance on a chair to help Mama mix the cookie batter.
4 years later, we’re one big neighborhood family.
We’ve had a community Easter Egg Hunt, a Community Garage Sale and a BBQ end-of-school-year celebration.
Neighbors cut each other’s lawns and we take turns watching the kids when they play outdoors.
This year, if you haven’t done so in the past, I’m going to encourage you to begin a baking tradition with your children.
Sure it’s more time-consuming and way too messy, and if you have younger children, they will tend to wear more of the flour than you would like them to.
And you will notice cookie dough will be transformed into a dough modeling session of its own.
While baking cookies for our local volunteer fire department last night, my 4-year-old and 8-year-old, decided it would be fun to stack the thumbprint cookie dough on top of each other and make snowmen!
But, in it all, you’re making special memories they’ll look back on with fondness and, hopefully, carry on the tradition with their kids.
And yes, make it a point to always set aside a portion of your baked goods batch to share with friends, neighbors, and/or even that sweet mailman your kids see working hard each day.
How to make Strawberry Thumbprint Cookies
I like using my 3 ingredient Shortbread Cookies recipe for the base of this recipe and strawberry preserves. (I love the strawberry pieces in the jelly!)
Ingredients needed to make Strawberry Thumbprint Cookies.
- All-purpose flour
- Butter
- Sugar
- Strawberry Preserves
This is such an easy recipe with simple ingredients.
Can I use any sugar in these Thumbprint Cookies?
You can.
While my Shortbread recipe calls for brown sugar, for this recipe, I used white.
Should I use oil or butter in my Strawberry Thumbprint Cookies?
I recommend using butter, specifically Kerrygold butter or any European butter, as I feel the flavor profile is much more decadent, especially while baking.
While mixing all the ingredients, ensure the butter is at room temperature.
Don’t melt the butter, though.
How do I know the cookie dough is ready?
Combine all the ingredients until you have a dough ball with the same texture and consistency as play dough.
How do I form Thumbprint cookies?
Form 1″-2″ size cookie dough balls. (size depends on how large you like the cookies.)
Once the ball is formed, flatten it, ensuring the dough height is at least 1/4-1/2″ tall. 
After this, make a small depression in the center of the dough, using your thumb,
and fill it with a dab of strawberry preserves.
That’s it!
Bake these in the oven for about 20 minutes.
Here’s a printable version of my Strawberry Thumbprint Cookies recipe:
Strawberry Thumbprint Cookies Recipe
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter (room temperature)
- 1/2 cup packed sugar
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- Strawberry preserves
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F
- Prep a cookie tray with parchment paper.
- Cream butter and sugar.
- Add the flour, a little at a time, and mix well.
- Form 1"-2" balls.
- Take a cookie dough ball, flatten it and form a small depression in the center of the flattened dough with your thumb. Fill the depression with a small dab of strawberry preserves.
- Once the cookies are prepped, bake at 325 degrees F (165 degrees C) for about 20 minutes. (but keep checking on this as bake time varies oven to oven. Mine got slightly browned on the ends!)
Do your kids love helping with the Christmas Cookies? Do they have a favorite cookie recipe?
We are either a peanut butter or chocolate chip cookie family and my boys really have little interest in helping.
YES my kids love to help me bake. They like chocolate chip or sugar cookies best.
I don’t have children, but do love the tradition of leaving cookies out for Santa, I help my nieces and nephews with theirs! 🙂
I absolutely love the story of how you broke the ice in your neighborhood and got everyone together as a community to do fun things! I love the holidays too. I actually just watched the Northpole movie last night! So cute! Your story sounds like it would make the perfect Hallmark Christmas special. 🙂
I have always loved baking cookies at the holidays with my daughter. We have such fun, and thumbprint cookies are our favorite to bake.
Yes the kids and I love to bake. Their favorite thing to bake for the holidays is cookies. They love making spritz cookies.
My kids LOVE to help me bake!! I love to make all kinds of cookies at Christmas, but we don’t have a favorite recipe.
OH I love that tradition. We used to always take cookies to the neighbors. Our neighborhood now are humbugs. They just don’t care. I love the special touches that the NorthPole baking adds.
Oh that’s so sad! Maybe a Christmas cake will make things better? 🙂
My son does actually like to bake cookies, that’s about the extent of his helping in the kitchen lately. When he was younger, he loved helping me cook/bake all the time. Sigh. I think for Christmas, we like baking and decorating sugar cookies the best.
I have been baking with my daughter since she was 3 and she is almost 17 now. That is one of the highlights of her day is when we cook together.
What a fun activity! That set is so cute, and my kids would love those glowing snowballs.
Yum! I love thumbprint cookies. Looks like your family had a lot of fun baking together.
I think that baking with kids is so much fun! Baking Christmas cookies is such a great experience for parents and kids alike.
Oh, thumbprint cookies remind me of my mom, who passed away last Christmas. It was one of our favorite cookies to make togther.
Those thumbprint cookies look divine! I love cooking with my son, even though he’s only two! Great bonding!
Our favorites to bake are classic chocolate chip!
My kids love to bake with me, creates such great memories! They like to bake anything they can decorate, so they’d love this recipe!
My 2.5 yer old is just getting into baking! I think she would love to make these!
The kids love joining the baking process. They always had much fun!
We spent so much time in that aisle at Walmart. So many fun goodies for fun and gifting. I too, remember baking for hours with my mama
I had a lot of fun baking with my kids when they were young. They really enjoyed it and I loved sharing my baking expertise. It’s pretty messy but your making memories too.
My boys like to bake on their own terms. They definitely don’t help all the time.
I saw those ‘snowballs’ at Walmart last week, I plan on picking up a few for my famly!
Yes, I love to bake with my son. We always have a tradition of baking secret kiss cookies.
Aww, that Magic Snowball is so cool! I love that it changes colors!
My son does not love to bake, which is a bummer. I love to make chocalate chocolate chip macadamia nut cookies, which is not a bummer.
Oh my delish!! I’m going to head over to see if you have the recipe up!
I am hoping to do Christmas baking with my kids this year. We haven’t done it yet but it is a tradition I would love to start.
I don’t have kids, but I have a man-child husband that likes to help me bake. Does that count? =D
Lol! Oh yes Jennifer!!
I love holiday cookies so much! I think my kids love cutout cookies the most, but spritz are another fave!
I’ve never had Spritz cookies Liz. Are they easy to make?
My kids love to help in the kitchen. I especially love baking with them because it’s okay to get messy. Thanks for the reminder about thumbprint cookies, I haven’t made them in ages.
My daughter likes to bake. I am already thinking about all the things that I want us to bake this year for the holidays.
My kids love to bake cookies with me. I’m not sure if it’s because they like spending time with me or they like eating the dough, but I’ll take it!
I probably didn’t bake with my sons that much. But with my daughter I did. And still do. It’s quite fun. The Hallark items are lovely I just adore the plate.
This is awesome, Christmas has so many memories for me and I hope to give the same to my girls. 🙂 We love our sugar cookie recipe!
i REALLY need to get over to Walmart to get some NorthPole stuff. Like today!!
Oh these look like fun cookies to make. Love the Northpole products at Walmart!
My kids and I love to bake together. This would be fun.
My kids love to bake sugar cookies and then decorate them. The Northpole products are so cute! Can’t wait to see the movie.
Looks yummy! I love Thumbprint cookies.
We love to bake, too, and I love the idea of bringing some to those who serve our community each day! I love the adorable way the bake like an elf kit makes baking even more fun than it usually is (which is saying a lot!) we’ll have to try out those adorable thumbprint cookies! #client
What a cute little set for baking. I love baking with my 7-year old, and she loves spending time with me in the kitchen. We like to bake and decorate sugar cookies.
Oh Carter loves to help bake cookies! This is his first year old enough to help, and I cannot wait to make some! These thumbprint cookies look so good and fun to make!!
I would have to say the yes, we love it very much. Our favorite is the almond peanut butter cookies
I love having my friend’s kids help me cook and bake, and they always have fun (and so do I! ) I can’t wait to make these delicious cookies with them!