Gelt Thumbprints

I have a little dreidel, I made it out of clay. And when it's dry and ready, Oh dreidel, I shall play! Dreidel is one of my favorite games to play with friends and family during the Hanukkah season—for such a simple game, it easily inspires some fierce competition over who will end up with the largest pile of gelt. The thing is, those coins are usually made up of, to put it kindly, not-so-great chocolate. What then to do with your sweet spoils? Make these chocolate-orange thumbprint cookies! With fewer than 10 ingredients, you can turn your winnings into a cute Hanukkah dessert that's perfect for sharing. Make enough, and you could even use them instead of gelt during a rousing after-dinner dreidel game.

Let’s talk about sizing. The gelt we used here are the silver dollar-size and the nickel-size, but you can use whatever you've got. If you go bigger or smaller, just use more or less cookie dough per cookie and keep an eye on baking time—bigger ones might take a little longer and smaller ones might need to be pulled earlier.

We used nonpareil sprinkles in blue and white for Hanukkah, but use whatever colors you like. Regular sprinkles or colorful sanding sugar should also work here—have fun with it!

I made these vegan for a few reasons: one, I largely eat vegan at home, and two, these being dairy-free means you can eat them right after a more-traditional, meat-heavy Hanukkah meal (Jewish tradition prohibits eating meat and dairy together). You may be able to make these using regular butter, but I haven’t tried it. If you do stick with margarine or vegan butter like the recipe calls for, just make sure you use the sticks. The kind in the tub has a higher water content and won’t work as well.

Like many cookie doughs, this one benefits from a bit of refrigeration to help develop the flavor and keep these from spreading too much in the oven. I like to make the dough and then scoop them, but you might be able to scoop, roll in sprinkles, and flatten, and then refrigerate. Whichever you do, don’t skip the step of placing these bake into the oven for a few seconds once they’re baked and you’ve added the gelt on top—it helps remove any bloom (that white coating that chocolate sometimes gets) and will give them a shinier finish. Any leftover cookies can be stored in an airtight container and kept in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.

Made these? Let me know how it went in the comments below.