Heart Cookies with Marbled Fondant

I went to an event where I got a bunch of fondant samples to bring home. I typically make my own white chocolate and marshmallow fondant, but wanted to try something fun and different with this prepared fondant that I had to use.  I had seen these fun marbled heart cookies on the cover of Family Circle, of all places. They looked impressive and seemed fairly easy so I thought I would give it a try. 

I used their recipe for the vanilla sugar cookies and while the consistency of the dough was very crumbly, they came together and the cookies turned out quite nice. 

All of the fondant that I had was white, so I got out my gel food coloring to make some black and pink as I was really wanting light pink and grey marbled cookies. I wish I had a lighter pink, but this was all I had. 

As I look back on the image from the magazine, I mixed in more color than white, but I still like the marbled look I got for my first try at this. 

I cut out some small and some large hearts. I even did a few with a scalloped cutter (see last photo) that my daughter really wanted to try. I made a simple vanilla buttercream to be the glue for the fondant heart and then used the same cookie cutter to cut out the fondant to top them off.  I'm not that great at piping royal icing on cookies (at least not yet), but I found this to be a great way to get a really polished look for decorated cookies. 

I loved my pretty heart cookies and packaged them for Valentine gifts for teachers and friends. They are especially good with a cup of creamy hot tea. Eat your heart out! :) 

Valentine Linzer Cookies

I wanted to make something special for Valentine's day and have always wanted to try making Linzer cookies. I used what I think was a traditional recipe including almonds in the dough.  Some of the recipes called for hazelnuts and some called for almonds. I started with hazelnuts and after burning them all when I was just trying to "toast" them, I resorted to using almonds, which I much prefer anyway.

The Joy of Baking site has a good overview of the history of Linzer cookies and a video tutorial on how to make them.

They didn't turn out as picture perfect as I would like, but they were lovely buttery cookies with raspberry jam inside and a sprinkling of powdered sugar that made for a sweet valentine treat. Next time I'd like to try making them with cutters that have a fluted edge.

My little miss A helped to put a spoonful of jam on the bottom cookie for me to spread and make the little heart sandwiches.  She was excited for when we were done to be awarded a cookie to test!