Valentines Shortbread Heart Cookies

One of our Valentine traditions is to make these delicious shortbread heart cookies! I have had this recipe for years and I think it came out of Family Fun magazine years and years ago. This recipe is a little time intensive, so we made parts of the cookies throughout our day: the dough in the morning, cut them out after lunch, I baked them during nap time, and we put the raspberry jelly on after nap. We will be delivering some of these cookies to our neighbor lady after dinner tonight, with some little valentines that the girls made. We'll be enjoying the rest ourselves over the next few days.

Shortbread Heat Cookies

2 sticks butter
½ c. sugar
1 t. vanilla
2 to 2 1/4 c. flour

raspberry jam

powdered sugar

• Take the butter out of the refrigerator let it sit for 20 min.
• Turn the oven on to 350 degrees.
• Mix the butter and sugar together with your hands. Add the vanilla. Add the flour a little at a time. Mix well.
• Press the dough into a flat, round shape. Wrap it in plastic and put it in the refrigerator for a half hour.
• Roll out the dough on a clean, dry counter top until it’s about a ¼ inch thick. Use hart-shaped cookie cutter to cut out the cookie. Use a spatula to slide the cookie onto an un-greased baking sheet.
• If you make harts of different size, put them on separate sheets. Cover the cookies and chill in the refrigerator for 20 min.
• Bake the cookies until they’re light gold (8 to 10 min. for large hearts, 6 to 8 min. for small hearts). Slide the cookies off the baking sheet and cool on a wire rack.
• Use a butter knife to paint a jam heart on each cookie. Or put two cookies together to make a heart sandwich with jam in the middle. Press each side of the sandwich onto a plate of powdered sugar.