In her new cookbook, Latin-ish: More Than 100 Recipes Celebrating American Latino Cuisines, one of the more personal recipes author Marisel Salazar shares is for guava thumbprint cookies.
“As a kid, newly arrived in America, making thumbprint cookies for the holidays felt like part of becoming a ‘real’ American, as though baking cookies somehow led to citizenship,” she writes in the intro to the recipe. “I did become a citizen but not from baking cookies or participating in Hallmark holiday traditions. As immigrants often do, I infused a local recipe with my own heritage, swapping out the raspberry or apricot jelly for guava paste.”
“In dessert form, these jewel-toned treats represent my assimilation into U.S. culture while maintaining my ‘Cubanity’ or Latinidad,” she adds. “A sweet testament to the holiday season and the power of combining cultures, they’re as easy to make as they are delicious to eat.”
Salazar grew up on military bases for most of her childhood, following her stepfather’s career. It exposed her to countless American holiday traditions, she told Food Fanatic, “and one of those was the act of making thumbprint cookies.”
“I considered it a rite of passage,” Salazar told us. “It seems that every proper American family made thumbprint, jelly-filled cookies around the holidays, and since I was a newly passported American, then why shouldn’t I?”
Learn more about Salazar and the Latin-ish cookbook!
“My mother begrudgingly served turkey at Thanksgiving, not so much because we enjoyed turkey, but for the homegrown Americans at the table, it seemed a requisite dish,” she continued. “Same thing for canned cranberry sauce. We (Latinas) didn’t enjoy it, but it had to be at the table or it couldn’t be considered Thanksgiving.”
But that isn’t the only thing she found on her holiday table.
“The Hispanic side of me enjoyed chicken molé for Thanksgiving, crab legs, Pulpeta, pernil, and other Hispanic Thanksgiving dishes,” Salazar said. “These dishes flavored up the repetitive drabness of rinse-and-repeat, cookie-cutter Thanksgiving dinners.”
Many people also associate thumbprint cookies with Christmas, or wintertime in general.
This guava thumbprint cookies recipe originally appeared in Latin-ish: More Than 100 Recipes Celebrating American Latino Cuisines, written by Marisel Salazar and published by Countryman Press (an imprint of W. W. Norton & Company). We’re grateful to her (and them!) for letting us share it with you here.
Recipes You May Also Like
If you love these guava thumbprint cookies, try these other recipes from our contributors!
- Peanut Butter & Jelly Thumbprint Cookies
- Paleo Blueberry Thumbprint Cookies
- Chocolate & Cherry Thumbprint Cookies
- Gluten-Free Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies
And if you want to try another recipe from Salazar’s Latin-ish cookbook, check out the New Mexico Breakfast Burritos recipe she shared with us! Or, speaking of Christmas desserts, try this Salted Nut Roll Recipe.
Guava Thumbprint Cookies
Equipment
- Small bowl
- Stand mixer with paddle attachment (or large bowl with electric beater)
- Baking sheet with parchment paper (or silicone baking mat)
- Wooden spoon
Ingredients
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- 2 tsp cornstarch
- 1 tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp kosher salt
- 2 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
- ⅔ cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 1 cup guava jelly or paste
- Powdered sugar or coconut flakes for dusting
Instructions
- In a small bowl, stir together the flour, cornstarch, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or a large bowl using an electric beater, beat the butter on low speed until soft, about 1 minute.
- Add the sugar and beat until the mixture becomes fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the egg, vanilla, and almond extract and continue to beat until the mixture combines well and becomes creamy, 1 to 2 minutes.
- Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and continue to beat until the dough comes together, 1 to 2 minutes. Cover the dough and chill it in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour and up to 2 hours.
- Preheat the oven to 350°F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
- Meanwhile, if using guava paste, use a wooden spoon to break the paste into chunks and melt the chunks in a small saucepan over medium heat until thick, smooth, and glossy, 10 to 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat.
- With your hands, roll 1 to 1½ tablespoons of the dough at a time into balls, arranging them 1 inch apart on the prepared baking sheet.
- Using your thumb, press a cavity in the middle of each cookie. Don’t press all the way through. Spoon 1 teaspoon of guava paste into each cavity. It should form a slight mound.
- Bake until the cookies barely turn golden, about 25 minutes.
- Remove from the oven, transfer to a rack to cool, and sprinkle with powdered sugar.