Looking for something special to make for your sweetheart on Valentine’s Day? Since cookies are a surefire way to just about anyone’s heart, why not show your love with some sugar cookies?
While sugar cookies have a long and distinguished history dating back to 7th century Persia, it was the Protestant settlers in the colony of Nazareth, Pennsylvania who created the sugar cookie we know today in the 1700s.
A sugar cookie is a refined and elegant confection with the most basic ingredients—sugar, butter, flour, eggs and vanilla.
For this special Valentine’s Day treat, I’ve taken a basic sugar cookie recipe, added some melted chocolate to part of the dough and used different sized heart-shaped cookie cutters to get the two-tone effect.
You can make this dough ahead of time, roll it out and freeze it. Then when you are ready to make the cookies, place the heart cookie cutters on the frozen dough, cut out the different sized heart shapes, place on prepared cookie sheets, then follow my directions in the recipe to get the beautiful two-tone effect.
You will delight your Valentine with these homemade black and white cookies, which are the sweetest way to say “I Love You.”
Happy Valentine’s Day!
Ingredients
- ½ teaspoon instant coffee
- 2 ounces semisweet chocolate, melted
- 2 ¼ cups flour
- 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
- pinch salt
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
- pinch of nutmeg
- 1 ½ sticks of butter, softened
- ¾ cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon milk
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- heart sprinkles
Before you begin, line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Have on hand a 3-inch and 2-inch heart cookie cutters.
Place the instant coffee into the melted chocolate and mix well. Set aside.
In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.
In the bowl of an electric mixer beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy—about 2 minutes. Add the egg and beat well. Add the milk and vanilla and mix together.
Add the dry ingredients and beat until just combined. Divide the dough in half. Place ½ of the dough into another bowl, pour in the melted chocolate and mix until combined. Place both doughs in the refrigerator for a few hours or overnight.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
When the doughs are well chilled, remove one at a time from the fridge and roll each into a circle about 1/8 inch thick. Using a 3-inch heart cookie cutter, cut out as many hearts as possible from the rolled out dough. Place the hearts on the prepared baking sheets. Press the 2-inch cookie cutter in the center of the 3-inch hearts and remove the smaller center heart. Repeat this process with the other dough, and replace the smaller center hearts with the other colored dough. For example, if you removed the center heart from the white dough, replace it with the center heart of the chocolate dough and vice versa.*
Place the cookies in the oven and bake for 10 to12 minutes or until lightly golden around the edges.
If desired, garnish the center of each cookie with a red or pink heart sprinkle.
Makes about 24 cookies
February 2018
Note
*If the dough becomes sticky and too difficult to work with as it becomes warm, place in the freezer for 15 minutes or longer, then proceed with the recipe.
