The Perfect Valentine's Day Cookie Recipe!

Over the years I have searched for the perfect cookie for each special occasion, focusing on the easy recipes, the recipes that allow for variations while using simple basic cookie dough's. To me, cookies are a way of life, a separate food group, a must have after each meal, and in between each meal they are the perfect snack.

In my opinion the perfect Valentine's Day cookie is a shortbread cookie. Just the name of shortbread cookies may make them sound complicated but they are easy for the untrained cookie baker/eater, and even easy enough for children to mix up. Shortbread cookies work well for Valentine's Day because the basic recipe can be altered by adding extra ingredients such as raisins, chopped nuts, chocolate chips, etc. If you have a mixer the same ingredients will whip up very nicely, and the cookies will be light and can be spooned onto a cookie sheet as other cookie dough. No mixer?,-- no problem, shortbread cookies can be mixed by hand, spread in a pan and scored into segments before baking, or rolled and cut out and decorated . Just perfect!

The internet offers many different recipes for these cookies, but the basic recipe is almost always no more than 4 ingredients, butter, sugar, flour, and vanilla. Once these are mixed in appropriate amounts (my favorite recipe follows), you can then add just about any other ingredient to vary to your taste. For Valentine's Day I usually coat the cookies with chocolate or white chocolate and add sprinkles or colored sugar for decoration. My favorite add-in ingredient is well chopped up walnuts or pecans. In the past I have also chopped almonds pretty fine, and filberts, also work well. My cookie cutter collection includes heart shapes in varying sizes and I sometimes use a larger heart first, and then cut out another heart shape from the center of the larger first cut. This makes a real cute cookie with an open heart center and after decorating one side (dipped in chocolate); I tie a red bow through the center around the other side at the top of the heart. These make great gifts!

My recipe is as follows:

Brown Sugar Shortbread Cookies (Preheat oven to 325 degrees)

1 cup softened butter

1 ¼ cups packed brown sugar

2 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 teaspoon vanilla (I have substituted maple or almond flavoring)

Optional ingredients: ¼ finely chopped pecans, walnuts, filberts or almonds, approximately ¼ c. chopped up chocolate chips, or raisins.

Cream together brown sugar and butter until smooth, add vanilla and then keep mixing while slowly adding flour. When the dough is thoroughly mixed (remember, this can be done by hand if a mixer is not available) shape the dough into a flattened circle and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate the dough for approximately 2 hours before handling. Sometimes I roll it out and cut it into squares with a knife and just leave plain. Place on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake until they are firm to touch and light golden brown.

For Valentine's Day I roll out to ¼" thick and cut out with heart shaped cutters, any size you have available. Melt chocolate bark and/or white bark in a double boiler or microwave bowl and dip l/2 of the heart cookie into the chocolate. Place them on wax paper and decorate with sprinkles or red colored sugar and enjoy!