Get ready for this year’s Valentines

14th February creeping up too fast? Racked your brains enough, still can’t find the perfect gift?

How about a homemade gift that makes your significant other swoon all over you without cutting a hole in that pocket?

We have come up with the perfect gift for you: Valentine cookies!

Let’s get started:

First - Heart shaped dough!

TIPS:

· Get your heart cookie cutters ( hyperlink )

· The dough can be left to chill for longer than 15 minutes — overnight or even 48 hours in advance will be fine — but if it is chilled this long it will need to sit at room temperature for about 15-30 minutes before it will be pliable enough to easily roll without cracking.

· Make sure to roll your dough at least 1/4″ thick — you want the cookies to be thick enough that you can grip the base and dip them in chocolate easily.

· Cool your cookies completely before dipping — these Valentine cookies are fragile while they’re still warm!

Let’s get to the recipe:

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 10 minutes

Total Time 40 minutes

Servings 45 cookies*

Calories 112 kcal

Ingredients

· 1 cup unsalted butter softened (226g)

· 3/4 cups sugar (150g)

· 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

· 1/2 teaspoon salt

· 1 large egg yolk

· 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (295g)

· 1 cup dark chocolate melting wafers (170g)

· 1 cup white chocolate melting wafers (170g)

Instructions

1. Combine butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer (or you may use a large bowl and an electric hand mixer) and beat until well-creamed.

2. Stir in vanilla extract and salt, stirring until well-combined, and scrape down the sides of the bowl using a rubber spatula to ensure ingredients are well-incorporated.

3. Add egg yolk and beat until combined

4. With mixer on medium-low speed, gradually add flour until well-incorporated (you will definitely need to scrape down the sides and the bottom of the bowl several times for this, as the mixture is fairly dry and crumbs tend to settle at the bottom of the bowl).

5. Transfer dough to clean surface and use your hands to form it into a cohesive ball.

6. Flatten into a disk (about 1" thick), cover with clear wrap, and chill for 15 minutes.

7. Preheat oven to 350F (175C) and line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.

8. Once dough has chilled, transfer it to a clean, lightly floured surface and use a lightly floured rolling pin to roll out to 1/4" thickness.

9. Lightly flour your cookie cutters and cut out your shapes, transferring them to ungreased cookie sheet.

10. Once you have cut out all of the shapes that you can, be sure to re-combine the scraps and roll out and cut out again to get the maximum number of cookies from your dough.

11. Bake on 350F for 10-12 minutes (this is how long it took me to bake my 2" heart cookies, you may need less time for smaller cookies or longer if you are using larger cookie cutters -- look for the edges to be just beginning to turn lightly golden brown) and allow cookies to cool completely before dipping in chocolate.

12. Prep chocolate by placing dark chocolate melting wafers in one bowl and white chocolate melting wafers in another and preparing according to package instructions.

13. Once chocolate is melted, line a cookie sheet with wax paper and, firmly holding the base of each cookie, dip the surface into the chocolate.

14. Immediately after dipping, place on wax paper lined cookie sheet (chocolate side up) and immediately sprinkle with nonpareils/sprinkles. Repeat, alternating with white and dark chocolate, until all cookies are covered with chocolate.

15. Allow chocolate to harden before serving.

Surprise your loved one with these yummy cookies that they were not at all expecting from you!

Let us know if they liked it! :)