Name: Vanilla Shortbread Hearts
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 20 min
Ingredients: 150g plain flour; 100g butter or margarine; 50g bourbon vanilla sugar

Vanilla Shortbread Hearts

25 Mar 2017

by Dinna

Prep Time

10 minutes

Cook Time

10 minutes

Total Time

20 minutes

Background

These vanilla shortbread hearts are made with vanilla sugar so they have an intensive flavour. They make lovely presents for special occasions such as Valentines’ day, Mother’s day, wedding anniversary and so on. They look gorgeous on the Christmas tree too - and they smell divine!! My version is vegan, as shortbread has no eggs anyway and I make them with dairy-free spread - but you can use proper butter if dairy is not an issue for you. This time I tried light-brown flour too which worked well. They keep well for about a week in a tin or jar.

Ingredients

150g plain flour
100g butter or margarine
50g bourbon vanilla sugar

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Put the flour and butter in a bowl and rub together with your fingers until you get crumbs. Add the sugar and combine until you get a firm dough.
Roll out the dough on a lightly floured work surface to 5 mm thickness, then cut out heart shapes using cookie (or play-doh) cutters.
Bake for 8-10 minutes until light brown.
Transfer the cookies to a wire rack and let them cool completely. Dust them with icing sugar if you like.

Tips

You can use other shapes to stamp out the dough - festive motives for Easter, Christmas and so on.
You can buy vanilla sugar in most supermarkets, although it’s very easy (and cheaper) to make some yourself: cut 1 vanilla rod into small pieces then whiz together with 200g of granulated sugar in a food processor. Store it in a jar.