Let me just confess right away that I could not stop taking pictures of these cookies. For every one picture you see here, there are 7 more sitting on my computer. I feel a little like one of those people who invite the neighbors over to watch a vacation slideshow.
As soon as I saw these cookie cutter and chocolate mold kits from Fancy Flours, I knew I had to try them. I used this kit and this one. Each kit comes with a cookie cutter/stamp and a set of chocolate molds.
To make the toppers, I tempered some milk chocolate. I still have some work to do on my tempering...you can see some little flecks in the chocolate, but overall, I was happy with them. The book Sweet Confections has great step-by-step instructions for tempering chocolate...and lots of other candy making.
You could also use candy melts...and I did actually make a few pink topped cookies with pink candy melts and totally forgot to take pictures of them! It's a travesty.
The cookies. Now, Mr. E looooves a shortbread cookie. Every Christmas, I buy him a tin of those butter cookies and he's in heaven. Me? I don't love them. Shortbread cookies sometimes seem a little one-dimensional to me. (I have no idea what I'm talking about, but they're not usually my favorite.) SO, I thought I'd try to make them a little more interesting.
These shortbread are salted almond shortbread. The healthy dose of salt works really nicely with the milk chocolate toppers...and even without the toppers. I love some salty with my sweet, so these were perfect for my palate.
Salted Almond Shortbread Cookies
{makes about 20 3-inch cookies}[notes: I used some white whole wheat flour in these cookies because I always think of shortbread as being more rugged than other cookies. ;) Feel free to use all-purpose for all of it. Also, if you'd like the cookies less salty, use unsalted butter and reduce salt to 1/2 teaspoon.]
1 cup salted butter, cut into chunks
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon pure almond extract
1 cup white whole wheat flour
1 & 1/2 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour
Preheat oven to 350. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Beat in the salt and almond extract.
Add in the flour and mix on low until combined.
Roll to 1/4-inch thick on a flour-dusted surface. Bake for 10-12 minutes until done. Remove to a wire cooling rack to cool completely.
For the toppers:
Temper milk chocolate or use candy melts. Pour into molds and let set. Unmold.
Use a microplane to shave off any rough edges or to smooth the backside (I wish I could do this to *my* backside). ;)
Melt a little chocolate and use to adhere the molded chocolate to the cookies.
Wishing you lots of love and cookies (and chocolate!) this Valentine's week!
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