It seems a little weird to be posting Valentine’s Day-themed sprinkled cookies this close to Halloween, but I’m going to let it slide just this once. The reason behind all the red, pink and white hearts is that my office recently held a surprise wedding shower for a co-worker who is getting married this weekend and I offered to bake something for the treats table. These cookies turned out so well that I just had to share them. Normally I don’t use real butter or white flour in my baking, but it’s shortbread and I really like to pull out all the stops when I’m baking for other people (aka not just for me and Trevor).
These cookies came together so well that I was almost surprised how quick and easy they were. The biggest pain was probably waiting most of the evening for the butter to soften to room temperature. I’m not really known for being patient and I hate the idea of dirtying another bowl just to zap the butter in the microwave for a few moments (my KitchenAid mixer bowl is metal).
Once the butter was soft enough to use, these cookies were almost effortless to mix, chill, roll, cut, bake, cool and dip in delicious melted chocolate. Did I mention that I was baking for other people? Luckily this recipe made a lot of cookies – I may have sneaked a few out of the freezer to make sure they were delicious enough to serve.
The vanilla beans are a fun visual additional to these cookies, but if you are not a fan of slicing and scrapping out vanilla bean pods you can substitute a teaspoon of vanilla extract or a flavoured extract of your choosing (an almond extract would be nice). Since these cookies were for a wedding shower, I used red, white and pink heart sprinkles, but the opportunities are endless. If you still have a couple Halloween parties coming up, you can use Halloween-themed sprinkles, Christmas sprinkles for upcoming holiday parties and cookie-swaps and even chopped nuts or shredded coconut for a simple non-themed cookie. Just don’t skip on using good-quality chocolate for that extra “wow” factor. The chocolate will also become soft at room temperature, so make sure that the cookies are slightly chilled before serving.
Cookie recipe adapted from Betty Crocker