These cute heart-shaped cookies from The Cookie Jar are perfect to make for that special person in your life. Fondant icing sugar is available from large supermarkets and specialist cake decorating shops, but you could also use the ready-to-roll fondant icing and simply knead in a drop or two of food colouring before rolling out.
200 g plain flour
a pinch of salt
90 g butter
seeds from 1 vanilla pod
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
50 ml thick plain yogurt
Fondant icing
175 g fondant icing sugar
red food colouring
2 baking sheets lined with
baking parchment
heart-shaped cookie cutters in various sizes
1–2 disposable piping bags
Makes about 20
Preheat the oven to 180°C (350°F) Gas 4.
Put the flour and salt into a large mixing bowl and add the vanilla seeds and lemon zest. Mix well. Rub in the butter until it is thoroughly incorporated. Stir in the yogurt and bring the mixture together to form a soft dough.
On a clean, lightly floured work surface, roll the dough out into a large rectangle about 4 mm thick. Cut out hearts with the cutters and arrange on the prepared baking sheets, leaving a little space for spreading between each one. Bring the trimmed dough together and roll out again to cut as many hearts out of the dough as possible. Arrange on the baking sheets with the other cookies.
Bake in the preheated oven for about 10 minutes, until golden and firm.
Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack to cool.
Mix 100 g of the fondant icing sugar with enough water and food colouring to create a fairly thick paste, making sure it is a pretty delicate pink and not too Barbie pink and decorate the biscuits by creating a heart shape a little smaller than the shape of the biscuit, leaving a small border (you could use a piping bag for this or simply spread with a palette knife). Mix the remaining fondant icing sugar with enough water to make a thick paste and pipe little white dots to create a pretty outline around the pink sugar icing.
Leave to set, store between layers of baking parchment in an airtight container or cookie jar and eat within 3 days.
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