Easy Valentine Cookies (2024)

• ▢ 200 g (1 and ¾ sticks/7 oz) unsalted butter - softened
• ▢ 95 g (½ cup minus 1 tsp) golden caster sugar
• ▢ 200 g (1 ¾ cups) plain (all-purpose) flour
• ▢ 95 g (⅔ cup) rice flour - white or brown rice flour is fine
• ▢ pinch salt
• ▢ 1 tbsp confectioners/powdered sugar
• ▢ 4 heaped tbsp raspberry jam

• Using a stand mixer, or by hand, mix the butter and sugar until well incorporated. Add the two flours and the salt, and mix again until just incorporated.

  200 g (1 and ¾ sticks/7 oz) unsalted butter, 95 g (½ cup minus 1 tsp) golden caster sugar, 200 g (1 ¾ cups) plain (all-purpose) flour, 95 g (⅔ cup) rice flour, pinch salt

• Scoop out the dough and squash it together into a big ball in your hands. Place it onto a lightly floured surface and roll out to approx. 6mm thick. The dough is quite delicate and will try to crumble in places. Just push it back together if it crumbles.

• Using a small (3cm across at the widest point) heart-shaped cutter, cut out as many little hearts as you can, and place them on 3 metal baking trays. You should get at least 80 single cookies. You'll find the cookie cutter won't stick if you dip it in flour before you cut. The biscuits can be fairly close together on the tray, but not touching. You can re-roll the dough to cut more hearts but don't keep re-rolling over and over.

• Cover each of your trays of cookie hearts with clingfilm/plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 30 minutes (up to overnight).

• When you're ready to bake, preheat the oven to 180C/350F (fan). Take the biscuits out of the fridge and take off the clingfilm. Sift the icing sugar over the cookies, and cook in the oven for 8-10 minutes, until the edges start to turn slightly golden. You may need to cook the trays on the lower shelves for a minute or two longer.

  1 tbsp confectioners/powdered sugar

• Take out of the oven and leave to cool for 5 minutes, then remove from the tray with a palette knife and place on a plate or cooling rack.

• Once cool, sandwich two cookies together with ¼ tsp raspberry jam. Repeat with the remaining biscuits.

  4 heaped tbsp raspberry jam

• Carefully place the biscuits in bags and tie them with string if given as a gift.

Refrigerating the dough:

It's really important to refrigerate the dough - this helps the flavour to develop and also helps to ensure you get a nice crisp edge to the cookies.

It will also ensure the cookies won't spread.

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Don't overwork:

Overworked cookie dough = tough cookies. I cut out the shapes, then re-roll and cut again. I may do one more re-roll, but no more than that. Any leftover dough 'bit' can also be baked in the oven (chef's treat!).

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Bigger cookies:

This recipe makes 80 tiny cookies (40 once they've been sandwiches together with the jam). Of course you can make bigger cookies. Keep the thickness the same, just use a bigger cookie cutter. Cook them for the same amount of time in the oven. Themay need an extra minute in the oven - just keep an eye on them and take them out just as the edges are starting to turn a very light golden colour.

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Rice flour:

Rice flour really helps to get the perfect crumbly, tender shortbread texture. I'm using a mixture of both rice flour and plain flour in this recipe.
It keeps pretty well, but if you want to use it up, here are some other rice flour recipes from the BBC Food website.

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Storage:

Store in an air-tight box at room temperature. These cookies are best eaten within 24-48 hours. They'll start to lose their crispness after that (but still taste great for a couple of days).

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Nutritional Information is per cookie.