Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies

I was so excited for these!  So excited!  Well, for some reason I didn't realize that thumbprint cookies are shortbread.  Are they always shortbread?  Am I crazy because I thought I used to like thumbprints better?  And I mean, I made them, I should have known.  I think it even said somewhere on Brown eyed baker's blog, or on some other thumbprint recipe I was researching.  I just don't love shortbread.  Oh well.  Nick likes shortbread, he says they're really good.

This recipe is from brown eyed baker's blog and can be found here.  The chocolate inside is really yummy.  I did not have corn syrup for it though... so I google searched until I found a substitute I felt good about - which was 1 cup sugar and 1/4 water for each cup of corn syrup.  This replacement made it more of a glaze - still tastes fabulous - but doesn't look as pretty as in the pictures on BEB's blog, probably because hers is thicker.

Also, as you can see from the pictures, my cookies cracked a lot when I made the middle print in them.  Suggestions?  Was 10 minutes too long from them to cook before I did this?  Maybe I should print them before they're cooked at all?  Anyway, I used the back of a teaspoon to make the print.  I did a few with my thumb to see if it would crack less... but it was too hot, and didn't really make a difference.

I'm full of questions today.  Next one... is it okay to use salted butter and leave out the salt instead of using unsalted butter?  Because I did.  But I give you the unsalted recipe below.

Recipe: Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies
• 1 stick of unsalted butter + 2 Tbsp. butter
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 ounces semisweet chocolate
• 3/4 tsp. corn syrup

Preheat oven to 350°.  Beat together 1 stick butter and sugar.  Add salt and vanilla.  Beat on medium-high until smooth, about 2 minutes.  Beat in the flour, beginning on low and increase to medium-high.  Make your cookies the size of heaping teaspoons. Roll them into balls and place 1 inch apart on a baking sheet.  Bake for 10 minutes, then remove from the oven and make an indentation with your thumb (or the back of a teaspoon or other round kitchen gadget).  Return to oven and bake 7-9 minutes more, until they are golden brown.  Move to a wire rack to cool.

Combine chocolate, 2 Tbsp. butter and corn syrup in a double boiler.  Stir until mixture is combined and smooth.  Allow to cool slightly.  Once cookies are cool fill them with the chocolate mixture.

Here's my process:

pre-baking

Here's where the problem comes in... look what happened when I made the prints.
They REALLY cracked.  Anyway, post baking.

Filled with yummy chocolate!

I told Nick that before posting this I needed to re-taste-test to see how I feel about them.  A day later I'm a little more forgiving of the cookies being shortbread because I just love the chocolate filling.