An ideal Valentine’s cookies recipe

Card shops are ablaze with red hearts, roses and Love You teddy bears; florists are taking early orders; and restaurants are booking up fast. Yes, Valentine’s Day is just around the corner!

Why not spread the love and bake some delicious heart shaped Jammie Dodgers to mark the occasion?

These Valentine’s cookies are not just tasty but look good too! They are perfect to share with with your kids, neighbours, friends or work colleagues on the 14th of February. Home-made Jammie Dodgers will make a cute romantic gift for your partner too.

The recipe is simple and ideal to keep the kids busy over half term, all you need is a bit of time, patience, some heart shaped cookie cutters and a few ingredients – listed below.

My nine year old son baked these on his own. Smaller children will love to join in too.

For more easy Valentine’s recipes take a look at our Valentine’s Chocolate Hearts Biscuit Recipe, Tasty Chocolate Truffles Recipe, or Peppermint Cream Sweets Recipe.

To make 12 to 14 Jammie Dodgers, you will need:

• Two heart shaped cookie cutters (about 6 cm and 3 cm)
• 200g (7oz) of plain flour
• 25g (1 oz) of custard powder
• 50g (2oz) of caster sugar
• 150g (50z) of butter softened and cut into small pieces
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 to 2 tablespoons of water
• 5 tablespoons of raspberry jam
• Icing sugar to decorate

Preparation:

• Preheat the oven to 160C (fan oven 150C) / 350F/ gas mark 3. Grease two baking trays
• Mix the flour, custard powder and sugar in a bowl. Add the butter and rub it into the flour mixture to make tiny crumbs (you can use an electric mixer if you have one)
• Stir in the egg yolk and mix into a smooth dough – knead the dough with your hands when it becomes too stiff. You might need to add a little water if your dough is crumbly. It needs to have pastry like consistency
• Roll the cookie dough out on a surface sprinkled with flour and stamp out large hearts with your cookie cutter
• Cut out little hearts from the centre of half of the large hearts using the small cookie cutter and transfer the shapes onto baking trays. Squeeze the trimmings together and roll out again. You should have 12 to 14 of each shape
• Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes until they are pale golden. Loosen them with a knife and leave them to cool on the backing trays
• When completely cold, spread jam over the whole cookies, top with the heart stamped ones and dust with icing sugar

Your home made Jammie Dodgers are ready to eat. Enjoy!

If you’re looking for Valentine’s day gifts, why not check out our Valentine’s balloons, Valentine’s teddy bears and chocolates? For more gift ideas, read our Top 10 Valentine’s Gifts article.

These heart shaped biscuits are quick and easy to make but with some simple decorating they will look great too!  A fun Valentine’s recipe that will make a tasty gift, these biscuits are also perfect to make with children and share with the family. Yum!

For more delicious treats to make and share with loved ones on Valentine’s day and other occasions, why not also try our Best Chocolate Cupcake Recipe or Triple Chocolate Brownies Recipe?

This Valentine’s recipe will make 16 to 20 soft chocolatey heart shaped biscuits.

You will need:

 For the biscuits:

• 190g of plain flour
• 100g of cocoa powder
• 1 heaped teaspoon of baking powder
• 250 g caster sugar
• 200 g butter or margarine softened
• 1 egg

For the icing:

• Ready to roll fondant icing
• 3 tablespoons of apricot jam

Preparation

• Preheat the oven to 180C (160C for oven fan) or gas mark 5 and butter two baking trays
• Using a wooden spoon or a food processor, cream the sugar and butter until smooth.  Add the egg and mix well
• In a separate bowl combine the flour, cocoa and baking powder
• Bit by Bit add the dry ingredients to the wet mixture to form a soft dough
• Using your hands, roll a small ball of dough (about one tablespoon) and place on the backing trays.
• Flatten the balls into round biscuit shapes with the back of a spoon (use a wet spoon if the dough is sticky). Make sure your biscuits are not too close as they will expand slightly
• Bake in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes. When cooked, place the biscuits on a cooling rack

For the icing:

• When the biscuits are cold, roll out some fondant icing and cut into hearts with a small heart shaped cookie cutter
• Brush your biscuits with warm apricot jam and stick the icing hearts on top

That’s it – your heart shaped cookies are ready to eat!

If you’re looking for Valentine’s day gifts, why not check out our Valentine’s balloons, Valentine’s teddy bears and chocolates? For more gift ideas, read our Top 10 Valentine’s Gifts article.

These peppermint cream sweets are easy to make, even with small children. My children who are three and four very much enjoyed the cooking although dipping the peppermint creams in melted chocolate turned out to be a rather messy affair.

Tie up your aprons, you will need:

• 1 egg white
• 350g of icing sugar
• 3 drops of peppermint essence
• 2 drops of green food colouring
• 125g of dark chocolate broken into pieces

Preparation

1. Whisk the egg white until white and frothy, sieve in the icing sugar, peppermint essence and food colouring and mix well.
2. Roll teaspoon size amount of the mixture into small balls and place them on a tray.
3. Flatten each ball with the back of a fork to form flat discs with stripes on top. Place in the fridge for at least an hour until firm.
4. Melt the Chocolate and dip each sweet into the chocolate until half covered. Place the sweets on a tray lined with greaseproof paper. Keep in the fridge until needed!

These peppermint creams will make a great gift for loved ones on Valentine’s day and other special occasions. Just don’t eat all the sweets while you’re making them!!

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Are you looking for a valentine gift that’s guaranteed to impress? Why not try our Large Valentine Teddy bear or Valentine Balloon Bouquet? A great surprise to impress your Valentine.