Each Holiday season, I make a bunch of cranberry sauce and can half of it for another day. I scoop heaps of it in small mason jars and eventually find them in the back of the fridge in the spring! This year an idea came to me when I was deciding what my holiday baking list looked like. Why not use my Tabbalicious tart cranberry sauce for some sort of filling! These thumbprint cookies are so easy to make that adding the cranberry sauce could only enhance the experience. Easy, but bake it holiday!

What you Need

COOKIES

• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 cup Peanut Butter & Co. Simply Smooth
• ½ cup butter, room temperature
• ¾ cup brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 cup leftover cranberry sauce

Cranberry sauce

• 12 ounces fresh cranberries
• ½ orange + zest
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 cup water

What to Do 

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

1. In a medium saucepan add the water and cranberries and set to boil.
2. Squeeze the juice from the orange and set aside and zest about 1 tablespoon of orange peel.
3. Once the cranberries begin to boil you will hear popping sounds, reduce heat to medium and continue to stir.
4. Next stir in the sugar and orange juice and zest and simmer.
5. Once the water has reduced remove from heat.

Thumbprint Cookies

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees
2. Add the flour, salt, and baking soda into a medium sized bowl and set aside.
3. In another bowl use an electric mixer to mix the butter and sugar together and then add the Peanut Butter & Co. Simply Smooth and mix thoroughly.
4. Next add the egg and vanilla and whisk into the dough. Gradually add the flour mixture and mix together well.
5. Form dough into a ball and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
6. While the dough is chilling make (or heat up) cranberry sauce
7. After 30 minutes, remove the dough form the fridge and form 1-inch balls and place on a baking sheet about an inch apart.
8. Once the balls are formed, press each ball down slightly with your thumb or ½ tablespoon back, leaving a small indentation in the center of each cookie.
9. Fill each cookie indentation with cranberry sauce. You can use a generous ¼ tablespoon to fill the cookies.
10. Bake about 11 minutes, until the bottom of the cookies are slightly golden. Remove from the oven.
11. Cool on baking sheet before eating – filling will be very hot!

Yield  15 cookies

Prep 15 minutes

Cook 10 minutes

Total Time 25 minutes