Chocolate Valentine Cookies

I am not a person who celebrate Valentine's Day. Ofcourse its nice in its own way, but I would like to steer clear of the marketing gimmicks and wholly commercialized plot. But then I could not resist these Valentine Cookies that I had bookmarked from the Pioneer Woman. I had followed the recipe part though not the decoration part as I didn't have the required stencils.

Ingredients:

All Purpose Flour: 2 and 1/4 cup

Cinnamon: 1/2 tsp

Baking Powder: 1 tsp

Salt: 1/4 tsp

Cocoa Powder:  4 tbsp

Butter: 1 cup or 200g 0r 2 sticks softened

Packed Brown Sugar: 1 cup

Vanilla: 1.5 tsp

Egg: 1 OR Egg Replacer: for 1 egg (1.5 tsp pkd Ener G + 2 tbsp water whipped + additional 1-2 tbsp water as needed

Powdered Sugar: Garnish

Preparation:

In a medium bowl,sift/mix together flour,salt,baking powder,cinnamon and cocoa.In another big bowl cream together butter and sugar till fluffy. 

Add in the egg and vanilla and beat well.It might looks curdled,but carry on. Add in the flour mix in 2or 3 batches beating well after each addition till you get a sticky brown and doughy mass. 

Cover the dough with a plastic wrap and then refrigerate it for atleast 2 hours after flattening slightly with your hand. Take out and place the dough in a floured surface and after 5-10 minutes once the dough has softened slightly, roll it out into 1/4 inch thick rectangle and then using a heart cookie cutter, made individual cookies. 

What I did was, I rolled out the dough within 2 plastic sheets and then refrigerated it within the plastic sheets and then took out and just cut out shapes.

Place the shapes/cookies on a lined baking sheet and bake in a preheated oven at 350F for about 10-12 minutes or until the edges start browning. The cookies might not be fully baked and might be just set,but thats okay. Let them cool completely on the baking sheet outside.

Start to finish......

Decorate the cookies artfully.I used a smaller heart stencil or rather a part of my daughters toy collection. 

I had gone for a thinner cookie and it turned out to be a bit crunchy. Go for your choice of thickness and get thick soft cookies or thin crunchy cookies.

These are perfect edible Valentine gifts to any or all of your loved ones, and also to yourself. Its nice to pamper ourselves with a perfect gift like this atleast in the name of a Lovers Day.- ;)