Cinnamon Shortbread Cookies with Candy Hearts

One of my husband’s favourite cookies is shortbread.  I’ll admit, I was never a fan until after about 8 years together.  Now I’ve acquired the taste, and I wanted to surprise Phil this with a new spin on the shortbread he’s used to.  He also likes cinnamon, and candy, so I’ve combined these all together into cinnamon shortbread cookies with little cinnamon hearts embedded upon them.  They’re perfect for this month’s Valentine’s theme with #FillTheCookieJar

Cinnamon shortbread cookie ingredients:

• 1 Cup Butter or margarine (we used a non-dairy spread and it worked well)
• 1/2 Cup Icing Sugar
• 1/2 tsp Salt
• 1/2 tsp Ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp Vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 Cups white flour
• Red food colouring (optional)
• Cinnamon heart candy (optional)

Directions:

If you’d like a slightly sweeter cookie, you can use 1 cup of icing sugar and decrease the flour to just 2 cups.

Pre-heat your oven to 300F/150C and grease your cookie sheets.

Mix the first 2 ingredients together until they are light and fluffy.

Add in the next 3 ingredients until well incorporated.  If you want to add food colouring, this is probably the best time to do it.  We made some of our cookies plain, and then added the colouring to the dough half way through.  It didn’t mix evenly, but it did leave a pretty marbling effect!

Add the flour and mix it all together until it forms a ball.  We took ours out of the bowl and finished mixing it on the table.

Lightly flour a flat surface and roll the dough out to about the thickness of a pencil.

Cut out the dough into hearts, or any shape that suits your fancy.  Cookies aren’t just for Valentine’s Day!

Place the cookies onto greased cookie sheets and bake them for 5-7 minutes.

If you’re using cinnamon hearts, this is the time to carefully press them into the cookies.  This job is best done by an adult as that oven is HOT!  Be aware that a couple of hearts may melt into a puddle, but most will be just fine.

Put the cookies back into the oven for another 6-7 minutes.  Keep your eye on them so that you can take them out in that precarious stage between them being done but the edges not turning brown.  This is where I tend to fail…just look at any of my cookie recipes and you’ll see what I mean!  I am improving with this.  But never mind if the edges do brown a little, the cookies will still ‘disappear’ just as quickly!

These little cookies were a hit with the family, and the kids loved the marbled look of our coloured batch.

The children enjoyed eating them with a raspberry and banana smoothie for an afternoon snack on a day Daddy would be late coming home from work.  It was the perfect end to a fun afternoon of baking with my children.