Chocolate and hearts – the perfect treat to make for Valentines Day! Sugar cookies are not only fun to make (and great if you have little children to keep busy) and delicious to eat, but they are make a great personal gift to give to someone. Make up a batch, keep some for yourself and treat everyone you love this Valentines Day!
200g
unsalted butter
200g
caster or berry sugar
Zest
of 1 lemon
1
large egg
350g
plain or all-purpose flour
50g
cocoa powder
To
decorate:
12g
/ 1 heaped tbsp dried egg white powder (meringue powder)
500g
icing sugar
5-6
tbsp water
Pink
& red food colouring
Decorations
of your choice
To
make the cookies cream together the butter and sugar using an
electric mixer. Be careful not to over mix as this can cause the
mixture to spread during baking. Lightly beat the egg then mix into
the cream and sugar until well mixed. Sift in the flour and cocoa
then with the mixer on low speed gradually mix together until a dough
forms. Take the dough out and form it into a large disc then wrap in
cling film and chill for at least 1 hour.
Line
a baking tray with baking parchment or greaseproof paper.
Sprinkle
some flour on a large chopping or your work surface. I tend to cut
the dough in half and work on one half at a time. Put the dough onto
the floured surface and knead slightly before rolling out to roughly
¼ inch in thickness. Using cookie cutters of your choice (obviously
since these are Valentines cookies hearts were the shape of my
choice!) cut out the shapes and carefully place onto the lined baking
tray. Once they are all cut out chill the cookies for another 30
minutes (If you are short on time you can miss out the second
chilling but the cookies might spread a little).
Preheat
the oven to 350F/ 180C/ GM 4. Bake the cookies for 8-12 minutes,
depending on the size, then remove from the oven and let cool on a
wire rack.
While
the cookies are cooling make up your icing. Sift the dried egg white
(meringue powder) and icing sugar into the bowl of a free-standing
mixture or large bowl, then add 5 tbsp of water.
Starting on a very low setting mix everything together then increase
the speed and mix until well combined, glossy and smooth. In order to
pipe the outlines you want the icing to be fairly thick so don't be
tempted to thin it too much. Divide the icing into bowls depending on
how many colours you want to make, then add a little food colouring
to each bowl (I use gel paste food colouring so it doesn't thin the
icing and use a cocktail stick to add the colouring – a little goes
a long way!). Put a little of each icing into a piping bag – I use
sandwich bags then cut the very corner off so you just have a small
hole. Carefully pipe the outline of the cookies. Once they have all
been done you can add a little extra water to each icing to thin it
slightly. Spoon some icing into the centre of each cookie and
carefully let it flood to the edges, helping it with the back of the
spoon or a small spatula. Once the cookie is evenly covered set aside
and repeat using up all of that colour. Once you are finished
sprinkle with decorations if using then let dry completely. Repeat
with all of the cookies then sit back and admire your handy work
before enjoying with a cup of tea!
Sweet treats! Happy Valentine;s Day!
ReplyDeletethese are lovely lyndsy! Happy Valentines
ReplyDeleteCompliments
ReplyDeletethey look very beautiful and delicious.
Regards, Diana
They look so good lynds! I love your valentine themed posts :) xxx
ReplyDelete