Valentines Heart Cookies

I am loving all the cute valentines ideas I have been seeing in the blog world. Inspired by the lovely vintage valentine hearts made by Bubble and Sweet and my new pretty book The Biscuiteers Book of Iced Biscuits, I used the second half of the cookie dough left over from my animal cookies to make some hearts.

Boyfriend and I accidentally have a kind of valentines tradition, he gets some kind of themed baked good and I get a silly/funny/lovely card. I remember our first valentines together, I gave him a heart shaped cookie (by Mrs Fields not me) with the words 'I love your guts' iced on.

I dont know what I will make for him this year, maybe something like these cookies?

Icing these heart cookies kicked my butt, the royal icing and my squeezy bottles just didn't want to cooperate. I love this chocolate cookie recipe, they turn out crispy and tasty and contrast really well with bright coloured icings. Overall I'm really pleased with how they turned out.


Chocolate Cookies

1 ½ cups plain flour
½ cup cocoa powder
Pinch of salt
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
¾ cup (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter (softened)
1 ½ cups powdered sugar
1 egg
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

To make the cookies- Sift together the flour, salt, cocoa and cinnamon.

In a bowl cream together butter and sugar until fluffy and pale.
Add the vanilla extract and egg to the butter mixture, beat on medium speed until combine.

Gradually add the flour, mix on low speed until just combine.

Divide the cookie dough in half (it will be very soft). Flatten each half into a disk and wrap in cling wrap. Chill the dough in the fridge for at least an hour.

Remove one disk of dough from the fridge, roll the dough between two sheets of baking paper until it’s about ¼ inch thick.

Using various sized heart cutters cut out the cookie shapes. If the dough has softened chill for a few minutes to make cutting the shapes easier.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees c. Line trays with non stick paper.

Position the cookies on lined trays about 3cms apart. Place the cookie sheet in the freezer until cookie dough is firm.

Bake the cookies until crisp, about 10-15 minutes. Let cool on baking trays.

For the Royal Icing

4 cups icing sugar
1/4 cup meringue powder
2-3 tablespoons water (as needed)
green, black and pink food colourings

To make the icing- add all the ingredients into a medium bowl, beat the ingredients about 7 minutes until smooth. If the icing is too thick add a little more water at a time. (Thin the icing with small amounts of water as needed when flooding the cookies)

Pipe the heart outlines onto the cookies using a fine piping tip. Allow the outlines to set before flooding with icing.

Once the outlines are dry, it is time to flood the cookies with thinned icing. Use a toothpick to spread the icing and remove any air bubbles.

If adding polka dots, drop small dots of alternative coloured flooding icing into the solid coloured heart while still wet.

Allow the flooded icing time to dry before piping on the the swirls and roses.