Cooking with Clay: Gluten-Free Teff Thumbprint Cookies with Strawberry Jam

Before we left for a weekend vacation recently, I pulled out a few cookbooks for ideas and menu planning. Clay walked over to his play kitchen and picked his Sesame Street cookbook off the shelf and sat down beside me and flipped through the recipes. He pointed out a thumbprint cookie recipe with jam. 

I knew I could easily make a gluten-free version and had wanted to try cooking with teff flour anyway. Teff flour is, as Bob's Red Mill notes on the bag, a "nutritional powerhouse". It is a whole grain high in fiber, protein and iron. Use your own jam made with honey and this recipe would contain only natural sugars. Honey Strawberry Jam from Simple Bites

All good chefs cook in their underwear, right? Well, Clay does most of the time. He also is very good at tasting his creations throughout preparation. He helped me mix the dry and wet ingredients, pressed his sweet little thumb in the dough and then filled them with local Harvest Time strawberry jam (from Canyon Lake and available at Austin Farmers' Market on Wednesdays). 

Gluten-Free Teff Thumbprint Cookies with Strawberry Jam

Adapted from Teff Peanut Butter Cookies - Bob's Red Mill website (and teff flour bag)

Makes 24 cookies

1 1/2 cups Bob's Red Mill teff flour (available at Wheatsville)

1/2 tsp. Celtic sea salt

1/2 cup REAL Maple Syrup (I use Coomb's grade B)

1/2 cup grapeseed or canola oil

1 tsp. organic vanilla

1 cup Justin's maple almond butter (or peanut butter)

jar of Harvest Time strawberry jam (or your favorite - try Confituras at Austin Farmers' Markets)

1. Preheat oven to 350. 

2. Add teff flour and sea salt to a large bowl, mix and set aside. 

3. In a food processor (or use a potato masher if you are in a vacation house with no food processor!) add maple almond butter, maple syrup, oil and vanilla and blend. 

4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and blend well. 

5. Roll the dough into small balls and place on a Silpat lined or ungreased cookie sheet.

6. Use your thumb or finger to make a well in the top of the cookie for the jam or jelly. 

7. Add a spoonful of your favorite jam to the cookie. Our cookies were designed by Clay so they were more free-form, but if you want them to be uniform you might want to be careful that the jam doesn't go any higher than the top edge of the cookie. 

8. Bake 13-15 minutes and let cool on a wire rack before enjoying.