Hearts & Hearts - Valentine's Day Cookies

Today is a very special occasion because both the Chinese New Year and western Valentine's Day happens to be fall on the same day on 14 February. In this case, no matter which event you are celebrating I am sure this year will be a great and loving year for everyone of you.

On this double-occasion, I guess anyone will be delighted to received such a box of self-made Valentin's Day cookies. For this set of "Butter Cookie With Melted Chocolate & Rose", I have add some rose petal on the half side of some heart shapes cookies before baking or for another design, I add the rose petal on the half hearts that is coated with white chocolate.

Baking is always full of fun and creation, ie. with a cute gift box, some assorted sizes of heart shape cutters, butter cookie dough, chocolate icing and colourful heart shapes sprinkles you can get everything done within an hour or so......

Ingredient: (make 20 - 25)
150g Top Flour
125g Butter, cut into small cubes
1 Tablespoon Icing Sugar
20g Milk Powder
1/2 Egg Yolk
1/4 Teaspoon Vanilla Essence

Method:
1. Sieved flour, milk powder and icing sugar in a mixing bowl.
2. Rub in butter until mixture resembles breadcrumbs.
3. Beat egg yolk and vanilla essence together before adding into the dough.
4. Quickly mix everything to form a soft dough, divide it into two portion in separate plastic bag and chill in the refrigerator for at least 20 minutes or so.
5. Roll dough out to 0.5cm thickness on a lightly floured tabletop and cut out with assorted heart shape cutters.
6. Place cut dough on baking tray that is layered with baking paper, pop the whole tray into the fridge while waiting for the oven to preheat to 180 degree. (keep the dough in the fridge after cut out will retain it's shape)
7. Bake the cookies for about 15 - 20 minutes (depending on the size of the cookies/oven type) till slightly golden brown.
8. Remove from oven, and rest the cookies on the tray for about 2 minutes before transferring them to wire-rack to cool completely before doing the icing/decoration.

For Decoration/Icing:
50g White Chocolate, melted
Some Assorted Colour Heart Shape Sprinkles
Some Dried Rose Petal, roughly cut

Method:
1. Melt the white chocolate by using either double-boiled method over a pot of simmering water or using microwave method (starts with medium/medium low heat of your microwave to melt the chocolate at 20/30 second interval, stir the mixture on and off till the drizzling consistency that you prefer).
2. Do not over cooked or else it will be harden.
3. Purchase edible dried rose from floral tea-shop/Chinese medical hall, use a small scissor to roughly cut the petal into small parts that is resemble the rose use in the photos here.
4. Use your creativity to decorate your lovely cookies in your way to express your loves and cares to your love one, family or friends......

This is a pretty simple design as I used 5 assorted colour heart shapes sprinkles to join them into a flower shape. So wait no more, if you still wondering what to get for this Valentine's Day, maybe you can start pulling those ingredients from your kitchen pantry and start working on something :) Here I wish everyone a Happy Chinese New Year & Valentine's Day.