This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser, MARS Incorporated. All opinions are mine alone. #SweeterEaster #CollectiveBias
White Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies, with a white chocolate filling, colorful sprinkles and M&M’S® White Chocolate, are a festive Easter dessert recipe!
The holidays were always a big deal in my house. And no, I’m not just talking about a big Thanksgiving feast shared with all 50 of my immediate extended family or magical Christmas traditions that filled our calendar all December long; I’m talking colorful décor and fun traditions all year long!
Not only would my Mom carefully decorate the entire house for every single holiday, from a real tree and her Christmas house village at Christmas, to whimsical, yet still somehow spooky Halloween décor, and all things red, white and blue from May through early July; she also came up with fun traditions for every holiday too.
Easter, or course, was no exception. Every spring my Mom would decorate the house with flowers, pastel colors, and an assortment of other Easter décor, from chicks and colorful eggs. We would then do fun and festive things like decorate eggs, go to community Easter egg hunts, and find fields of beautiful Texas Bluebonnets and Indian Paint Brushes (another Texas wild flower) to frolic in.
And then Easter morning we would wake to our entire house dotted with colorful eggs, and Easter baskets filled with candy and treats and fun little trinkets like stickers, coloring books, crayons and maybe a doll.
But my favorite tradition for every holiday was getting in the kitchen to bake up special holiday treats, like decorated sugar cookies.
Today, because of those fond holiday baking traditions, I eagerly await each holiday so that I can get into my own kitchen to bake up a special holiday treat! However, at least right now, I’ve expanded my festive holiday baking to other things besides festive sugar cookies, and I make a variety of holiday desserts, from cute cupcakes, to festive popcorn mixes to things like these White Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies!
Not that there’s anything wrong with those festive decorated sugar cookies, I just don’t always have time for that and I have so many recipe ideas floating around in my head! In fact, that’s how these delightful and delicious White Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies came about. I was pulling out my tiny collection of Easter décor and ran to Walmart to stock up on Easter candy, like M&M’S® Milk Chocolate, for my Easter candy dish, when I saw the new M&M’S® White Chocolate (available only at Walmart).
Because of the way my brain works, I was immediately concocting recipes using these new seasonal M&M’S® White Chocolate and out of those handful of Easter recipes I was coming up with, I decided to make a twist on one of my favorite cookies, thumbprint cookies. Usually I make thumbprint cookies the traditional way, with a fruit crud or jam filling, but inspired by those M&M’S® White Chocolate, decided to make a white chocolate filling and use colorful sprinkles and the M&M’S® White Chocolate to add a pop of color and make these a rich and festive Easter dessert!
I absolutely love that these little thumbprint cookies come out cute and delicious, and decided to package them up in treat bags adorned with simple cupcake liner flowers, to gift to friends and include in Easter baskets filled with other Easter candies, like Starburst® Filled Egg and new DOVE® Peanut Butter Eggs!
What are your favorite Easter treats and traditions? Please share in the comments below!
- For the Shortbread Cookies:
- 1 1/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup confectioner’s sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- ½-1 tablespoon cold heavy cream
- --
- For the White Chocolate Filling
- 3 ounces white chocolate or white chocolate candy melts, chopped
- 1 tablespoon heavy cream
- --
- For Topping:
- 18 M&M’S® White Chocolate candies
- 2-3 tablespoons colorful sprinkles
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- In a small bowl, stir together flour and salt. Set aside.
- In a medium-sized mixing bowl, using a hand-held mixer or stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat butter until creamy. Add sugar and beat until light and fluffy. And vanilla and beat until well combined.
- Slowly beat in the flour, a little at a time, mixing until well combined. If dough is crumbly, add ½ to 1 tablespoon cold heavy cream to help dough come together. If needed, use your hands to knead and shape dough into a ball.
- Scoop and shape dough into small balls of dough, using approximately 2 teaspoons of dough per ball. Place dough balls on prepared baking sheet approximately 1-inche apart.
- Gently press thumb into the center of each ball of dough, creating a small indention and being careful not to crack dough too much.
- Bake cookies in preheated 325-degree oven for 9-10 minutes or until cookies are set and lightly brown on the bottom.
- Allow cookies to cool slightly, and press the indentation in again, if needed, to make it a little deeper, still being careful not to crack or break the cookie. Transfer cookies to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Meanwhile, form the white chocolate filling by combining the white chocolate and the heavy cream in a small glass bowl. Microwave chocolate for 30 seconds. Remove bowl from microwave and stir until chocolate is completely melted. Return the bowl to the microwave for 15 seconds, only if needed to melt the chocolate further.
- Using a spoon, spoon approximately ½ to 1 teaspoon of melted white chocolate into indention in each cookie. Top white chocolate filling with sprinkles and one M&M’S® White Chocolate.
- Allow white chocolate filling to set, approximately 10-15 minutes, before eating or wrapping up for gift giving.
Cupcake Liner Flower Treat Bags
By Heather H. of Kitchen Concoctions: www.kitchen-concoctions.com
Supplies:
Mini cupcake liners, in assorted colors
Glue stick
Medium buttons, in assorted colors
Cellophane treat bags, with twist ties
To make cupcake liner flowers, fold one cupcake liner in half so that the white part (if cupcake liner is not solid in color) faces the center.
Then fold the cupcake liner in half again.
Next, fold one edge of the cupcake liner towards the center and the other side back the opposite direction, so that the folded cupcake liner looks like an accordion.
Repeat this folding process with five more mini cupcake liners.
Using a glue stick, place a good amount of glue on one of the folded edges. Attach another folded cupcake liner to that edge and hold tightly for 30 seconds. Repeat this gluing process until all the folded cupcake liners have been glued together, gluing the two end liners to form a circle.
Take another cupcake liner and flatten it out. Place a good amount of glue all over the colored side of the flattened cupcake liner and attach the cupcake liner flower and hold for 30 seconds to secure.
Glue a button in the center of the flower.
To form the treat bags, stack 4-6 White Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies in each treat bag. Secure each bag with a twist tie and glue the cupcake liner flower to the twist tie.
Gift this adorable Easter treat to friends and neighbors as is, or include as a homemade treat in Easter baskets!
Stock up on all your Easter needs, including assorted Easter candy and all the ingredients for these White Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies and Cupcake Liner Flower Treat Bags, at Walmart this spring! And for more fun and festive Easter recipes and Easter basket ideas, click here!
These are so precious and look like little bites of spring. YUM! #client
Thanks for letting make and look at your recipes