A taste of these Kaufmann’s Thumbprint Cookies, is a taste of Pittsburgh history. It is the cookie you would grab on the go after work, it was the treat that made you drive the city tram, it was the cookie to give and receive during Christmastime. It was a cookie for daily celebration as well as being the highlight of a holiday season. Its sturdy but tender cookie base is rolled in Jimmie sprinkles and piled high with a smooth and velvety buttercream.

In the late 19th century, New York had Macy’s and Gimbel’s, but in Pittsburgh, they had Kaufmann’s. Sure the industrial city had their own Macy’s and Gimbel’s, but of the department stores surrounding the Golden Triangle area of downtown Pittsburgh, the local department store, Kaufmann’s, was the oldest and had a good reputation behind its food. Alongside the Tic Toc Restaurant and the various smaller food shops and carts, the Arcade Bakery, was a staple for the community. People would take the tram ride downtown and off of the 5th Avenue entrance, they find a small bakery tucked into the first-floor of the massive department store, which in its heyday spanned twelve stories and covered 1.2 million square feet.

Starting in the 1980s, Arcade Bakery started selling these thumbprint cookies. The thumbprint bakers had free rein, and they would come up with a variety of flavor combinations which amounted to almost sixty different thumbprint combinations. If the flavor didn’t do well, it was booted, if the flavor was well received, it was kept in the massive rotating lineup of flavors. When Macy’s bought Kaufmann’s in 2006, the bakery remained open despite Macy’s never having bakeries in their stores. The production of the thumbprint cookies was saved until Macy’s closed down that Pittsburgh location in 2015. The community was at a loss, not because of the department store, but they were sad because residents could never have these cookies again.

Another famous bakery, Prantl’s, stepped in and started making these local classic cookies, but people could taste that they weren’t a 100% match. The bakery reached out to one of the former thumbprint cookie makers of the Arcade Bakery, Kevin Ulrich, who had been there since the thumbprint’s inception in the 80s. Once he got started baking, people knew the thumbprint cookie was back.

This recipe, which started floating around the internet since 2006, is supposed to be quite close to the original recipe.

The dough is similar to shortbread, but has the addition of an egg to keep the cookie dough from crumbling. This dough uses a mixture of shortening and butter and there are no ifs, ands, or buts about it, use shortening! Shortening provides moisture to the dough (it has less water than butter, which would evaporate during the baking process) and keeps these cookies tender and moist.

Once the dough is formed, take the dough and divide it until you get twenty-four even portions of dough.

Roll the dough into balls, coat them in Jimmie sprinkles, and press an indentation into the center of each cookie.

To help the cookies keep their shape, refrigerate them for a minimum of twenty minutes. The cookies then get baked in the oven until the bottoms are slightly golden.

Once they are cold down, the cookies get a heavy piping of buttercream frosting. These versions of the frostings are slightly less sweet than the traditional bakery frosting, but they are still marvelous in taste and texture.

These Kaufmann’s Thumbprint Cookies are ready to serve! The cookies have a base that is soft and chewy, with a texture that has a wonderful moist and hydrated quality (no cookie dry mouth here).

While the cookies have a touch of sweetness, it is toned down, balancing out the buttercream frosting.

You can follow tradition and pile the frosting on, but here the serving size of buttercream is a bit more subdued. It is a great cookie to make for any holiday you have coming up. The sprinkles and frosting can be altered to fit the flavors of the season.

For a quick treat on hand, you can prep the cookie dough, roll the cookies in sprinkles, put an indentation in the centers, and keep them in the freezer. You can then take out as many cookies as you need and finish the cookies with a fresh batch of frosting.

These cookies have become a classic of the Steel City and hopefully, they will become a mainstay cookie in your home as well!