Cookie Madness: Gingerbread Cookies vs Thumbprints

The First Matchup in Cookie Madness Round 1: Gingerbread Cookies vs. Thumbprint Cookies

The first matchup in the Cookie Madness, Cookie Bracket is here! This round features the annual Christmas staple, Gingerbread Cookies vs. Thumbprint Cookies. Here is some vital information you’ll need to help choose which cookie recipe moves on to the next round.

Gingerbread Cookies

Gingerbread cookies are full of spices to give them a warm, hearty taste when you eat them. Obviously there is a fair amount of ginger included, but there could also be allspice, cloves, cinnamon, and cardamom added. There are several variations of gingerbread cookie recipes that one can use to make it specific to your liking. For people who like spicy, a dash of black pepper is added. When you like a mellow taste, cocoa powder can be used to make the chocolate and spices seem more savory.

Here is a recipe for Gingerbread rollout cookies comes from Sally’s Baking Addiction if you would like to whip out  batch and put these two cookies face to face in your kitchen. Even though it isn’t Christmas, you can use cookie cutters to match spring using flowers, rabbits, bunnies, chicks or whatever shapes you may have on hand. In the absence of cookie cutters, rolling out the dough and cutting shapes with a table knife is perfectly acceptable!

Now introducing the Cookie Madness challenger…

Thumbprint Cookies

Thumbprints are traditionally filled with jam, although some variations of the recipe used melted chocolate. The best part with Jam Thumbprints is that a variety of fruit jams can be used to fill the insides of your batch of cookies. If you are feeding a crowd at a party or social gathering, the multiple types of colorful fruit jams can look pretty when displayed on a tray. You can always pick one jam, such as strawberry, raspberry or even apricot, but mixing it up can appeal to multiple taste buds.

Here is a classic Thumbprint Cookie recipe that allows you to use whatever type of jam you have on hand.

Vote for which is your favorite, Gingerbread Cookies or Thumbprint in our Twitter poll. Who do you want to move on to the next round in the Cookie Madness, Cookie Bracket?

What cookies are you baking? Is there a perfect cookie recipe that we need to try?