Next to Christmas, Valentines’s Day is probably a baker’s favorite holiday. It’s just long enough after Christmas to be ready to bake again and there are so many choices of treats to make. When I came across this Heart of Gold Cookie recipe on the King Arthur Flour blog, I knew right away what I wanted to make for Valentine’s Day. The cookies are made by making two separate batters, one a vanilla sugar cookie and one a dark chocolate cookie dough. The cookies are baked at the same time, an equal number of each on the cookie sheet. Four minutes after removing them from the oven, a small heart-shaped cookie cutter is used to cut a heart out of the middle of each cookie. The dark and light middles are swapped, making an opposite color heart in the center of each cookie (counter-change). How clever and fun is this? I made these with a friend and it was really helpful to have someone work with me to swap out the middles. Since this makes a lot of cookies, it was also nice to share the batch with another family. I will probably try this technique again with other batters too. Colored sugar dough or peanut butter and chocolate doughs would be fun and of course different shapes for different holidays. It’s not too late to whip some up for your sweetie!
