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Tender, buttery shortbread cookies filled with a dollop of tangy mango jam and a sprinkle of hibiscus-cayenne sugar.

Inspired by the mangos-on-a-stick you often see served in tropical resorts, carved into delicate flower shapes and sprinkled with lime juice, salt and cayenne pepper. It’s an unexpected combination, sure, but the sweet-meets-spicy elevates the intense flavor of the fruit to an entirely different level. So if you don’t have a tropical beach vacation on the horizon, these cookies are quite possibly the next best thing.

This recipe is a variation on similar shortbread thumbprint cookie recipes I’ve made before, proving once and again that shortbread is perhaps the most versatile vehicle for just about any flavor you can imagine.

Homemade fruit jam? Check. Lemon poppyseed? Yes, please (the recipe’s in our book if you’re curious). Dulce de leche? Double check. Chocolate ganache? oh heck yes (and gingerbread spiced, to boot!)

Really, you could fill these with just about anything that would compliment the buttery sweetness of the shortbread cookie.

When testing this recipe I tried two different fillings: a creamy, tangy mango curd, and a quick mango jam. I brought the results to my Wednesday night ceramics class (finally I have a place to take my excess baked goods!) and the jam was the near-unanimous winner.

Which is awesome because the jam is much easier to prepare. No eggs or tempering or potential separating/curdling involved.

Personally as much as I want to like curd, I don’t know if my tastebuds are super sensitive or what but it always has a slightly metallic undertone to me. There’s a reason curd recipes always specify non-reactive cookware, so put away that aluminum and cooper because it will definitely react with the lemon juice and produce an obviously metallic flavor.

However when testing the lemon curd for the book I even went so far as to never let a speck of metal (reactive or otherwise) touch the curd, from the pan to the whisk to the sieve I strained it through. I couldn’t figure it out. Eventually I just assumed it was the nature of the curd itself that irritated my super tastebuds (go figure). Some lemons seemed more intensely metallic than others, which is why I ultimately ended up using Meyer lemons in that recipe: they were the least offensive to me.

While this version here is mostly mango puree with added lime juice (see, no lemons at all!) I still couldn’t get over the metallic tang. Even Taylor admitted he tasted it, albiet subtly.

Still, if you’re a curd fiend and don’t experience the same weird aftertastes that I do normally, you can certainly use a mango curd recipe here (and there are plenty of them out there). And I’ll admit, the curd ones really are prettier (the curd settles into a perfectly rounded blob in the middle of the cookie; the jam needs a bit more coaxing since it’s not quite as viscous, as you can see above).

But since my favorite, taste-wise, Taylor’s favorite, and the general consensus of my clay-wielding classmates was the jam version, that’s the recipe I’ve included here.

Or if you happen to have a jar of this delightful mango passionfruit jam (cue heart eyes!) that would work lovely here as well!

But let’s talk about the cherry on top: the spicy hibiscus sugar. It’s both decorative (there’s no denying that little sprinkle of coarse, pink texture makes these look less like egg yolk cookies and more like, well, somthing you’d want to eat) – it’s also a flavor amplifier, to say the least.

The cayenne chili powder is subtle. There’s such a small amount on each cookie that you’re not going to taste a strong spice with every bite. It’ll surprise you here and there with a bit of a tingle, more of a tickle than a downright burn. But, if you’re into that sort of thing, feel free to up the quantity of cayenne (just please warn the faint of heart before the unknowingly dive in).

The hibsicus is subtle as well, more for color than anything here. I ground up some dried hibiscus leaves in a mortar and pestle for a nice rustic appearance, but you could also pulse it briefly in a small food processor or handheld coffee grinder. There’s also a little bit of salt in there, because sweet and salty is where it’s at.

When making thumbprint cookies, my biggest advice is to not actually use your thumb. If you look at your thumb, it’s not exactly round, isn’t it?

Well, if you want perfect(ish) looking thumbprint cookies, grab a round teaspoon (or half a teaspoon is usually a better size) and use that to make your imprint. Dip it lightly in flour so it doesn’t stick. Something like a melon baller, or heck, even a big marble would work here too. Anything really that you can press into the cookie to give it a nice round imprint. Whatever you use, press it down very gently to prevent the dough from cracking (you do not need to press it all the way down, about 3/8-inch deep or so is more than enough.

When the cookies bake they will puff up again. When you remove them from the oven (they should be just puffed but not yet starting to brown since they still get a few minutes more baking time), use the same round apparatus you used before to gently press into the cookie to reform the perfect indent.

Then, add your filling. I find the most time-efficient way to do this is with a piping bag fitted with a round tip (1/4 or 3/8-inch size is just about right). Then you can pipe perfect dollops into your cookies quickly, and get them back in the oven before they’ve cooled too much.

This final bake helps set up the filling, settling it down into the depression and giving it a nice smooth surface.

You can technically sprinkle the sugar on before or after this final bake, that’s up to you. Doing so before will melt the sugar a bit more into the filling, doing it after will leave it a bit more sparkly and raw.

Tart. Fruity. Butter. Tangy with a hint of spice.

I mean, it’s really everything you could ever want in a cookie (except chocolate, but even I’ll admit that not all cookies need to have chocolate).