To be honest with you, I am not really ‘into’ Valentines Day. Unfortunately it seems like an over commercialised day, but my distain for Valentines Day doesn’t extend to heart shaped cookies, rose flavoured anything or pink icing. These things can be enjoyed any day of the year, and shared with those you love regardless of what day it is.
I had the original idea for these about a year ago when I was testing recipes for my Baking with Rose eBook. I had an idea for a heart shaped shortbread with rose icing. As it turns out, the shortbread looked great, but I found they took on the moisture of the icing and went a bit soft. I ended up creating my Rose Cardamom and Pistachio Shortbread (sans any icing), which I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed.
Now a year later, I came back to the heart shaped cookie idea and knew that a sugar cookie was the only way to go. I added crystallised rose nibs (I buy mine here) and a few drops of natural rose extract, however you could definitely leave both of those out if you wanted.
I used Gewürzhaus rose powder to colour and flavour the icing, however if you can’t get rose powder, just leave it out and add a little pink food colouring. You will still have the rose flavour from the rosewater, and they will still taste great (you may even need a little less rosewater than the recipe says if you aren’t using the rose powder).
My Baking with Rose eBook is available here if you are interested in more rose recipes.
Gewurzhaus Rose Powder
Rose Sugar Cookie Hearts
Ingredients:
200g unsalted butter, softened
200g caster sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla bean paste
5 drops natural rose extract, optional
15g crystallised rose nibs (or very finely chopped crystallised rose petals)
1 egg, lightly beaten
400g plain flour
Ingredients for the Icing:
230g icing sugar
2 tsp rose powder (I used this one from Gewürzhaus)
2.5-3 tbsp rosewater
Method:
Line three large baking trays with baking paper.
Place the butter, sugar, vanilla and rose extract if using in the bowl of a stand mixer and cream using the paddle attachment, until just combined. Add the crystallised rose nibs and mix until combined.
Slowly add the beaten egg to the mixture and mix until well combined.
Add the flour and mix on low until just combined and the mixture forms a dough.
Bring the dough into ball, remove from the bowl and cover in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 30-60 minutes.
Lightly flour your work surface and tip the dough out onto it. Dust the top with a little more flour as well to prevent the dough sticking to your rolling pin. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough out until it is about 5 mm thick.
Use a medium sized heart shaped cookie cutter (approx. 7-7.5cm in width at the widest part) to cut out the cookies, placing on the prepared trays. Bring the dough together and re-roll when necessary to ensure you use all the dough. Place the cookie filled trays into the fridge for another 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 170 degrees Celsius.
Bake the cookies for about 15 minutes, or until they are lightly golden around the edges. Rotate trays in the oven about half way through to ensure they cook and colour evenly.
Allow the cookies to cool on their trays.
To make the icing, mix the icing sugar and rose powder in a medium bowl, then gradually add 2 tbsp of the rosewater to form a smooth thick icing. Add a little more rosewater if the icing is too paste like. The icing needs to be fairly thick so the icing won’t run off the cookies, but not so thick its difficult to spread.
Using a small palette knife ice half of each heart shaped cookie, and place back on their trays and allow the icing to set for a few hours. I found I had a little icing leftover at the end, but to be honest I’d rather have a little too much than not enough! You could always ice some of the biscuits fully rather than just half if you really wanted to use it all up.
Allow the icing to set before storing in an airtight container. Will keep for about a week.
Makes about 36 heart shaped cookies.
Reference: ‘Cookies’ by Peggy Porschen (Quadrille Publishing, 2014), p.8.
