Jam-filled Heart Cookies

For these cookies you will need:

1. A Rolling Pin
2. two nesting heart-shapped cookie cutters
3. Sugar cookie dough recipe + ingredients
4. Extra flour & powdered sugar
5. Red jam
6. Cookie Sheet

First step is to make the dough – or  pretend you made the dough. When I use pre-made dough, I always add just a little bit of flour so it doesn’t stick to everything.

 

Next you’ll need to roll it out. I recommend 3/16″ (just a little less than a quarter of an inch) because you’ll be putting together two cookies in the end, so it gets a bit bulky. This also depends on how much your dough rises.

 

Once you’ve rolled out your dough, go ahead and use the cookie cutters to cut the big hearts in the dough. At this point you’ll want to cut little hearts in HALF of the big hearts.

I just made a few cookies because I didn’t want to eat a dozen or so. If you are going to make a lot of these, I would recommend making your own dough, that pre-made stuff is expensive.  But if you really need to save time, it only took me about 20 min from start to finish to make these awesome cookies.

Next you’ll want to bake the cookies. Just follow the instructions on your recipe. The hardest part of this whole thing was transferring the dough to the baking sheet without ruining the shape. Here are the cookies after they were baked. I also baked the little inner hearts, but had to do it on a second sheet.

I let the cookies cool for about a minute on the pan, then they are easy to move to a paper towel or cooling rack. The assembly of the final cookies is pretty easy. I had the cut-out hearts on one side and dusted them with powdered sugar. Then the whole hearts I covered with a thin layer of jam – a bit thicker towards the center.

The final assembly consisted of placing the dusted hearts on the jammed hearts. Viola! Beautiful jam-filled heart cookies! These were so so yummy, I’m going to make a big batch for Mr. ??? to take to him on Valentine’s Day!

If you are wanting to make the dough from scratch, I found this super easy recipe here.

Raspberry Sandwich Hearts
Ingredients:

Dough:
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus additional for work surface
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
¾ cup confectioners (powdered) sugar, plus additional for dusting
1½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
½ teaspoon pure almond extract

Filling:
½ cup seedless raspberry jam or raspberry preserves

TIP: Use standard measuring cups and spoons or scales for accurate measuring.


Dough:
1. In a medium mixing bowl, sift flour and salt together. Set aside.
2. In a large bowl of an electric mixer, combine butter and confectioner sugar; beat together until mixture is smooth. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula so the mixture blends evenly. Add vanilla extract and almond extract; stir until blended. Add flour mixture; stir to mix.
3. Form dough into a 6 inch flattened disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until well chilled, at least 2 hours.
4. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Baking sheets may be ungreased, lined with parchment paper, or lined with a non-stick baking mat.
5. On a lightly floured pastry mat or pastry board, and using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll the dough to a 1/4 inch thickness. Cut dough into hearts or other desired shapes using a 2½ inch cookie cutter that has been dipped in flour (to help prevent dough from sticking to the cutter.)
6. Using a 1 inch heart shaped cookie cutter that has been dipped in flour, cut out the center of half of the 2½ inch cookies. Re-roll the scraps, or bake the 1 inch heart shapes separately.

Bake:
7. Place cutout dough 2 inches apart on baking sheets. Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until cookies are set and the edges are very lightly browned. Remove cookies from baking sheets with a metal spatula and place on a wire cooling rack to cool.

Filling and Assembly:
8. Leaving a ¼ inch border uncovered, spread about 1 teaspoon of the raspberry jam over each cookie without the middle cutout.
9. Using a fine-mesh sieve, dust the tops of the cookies that have the middle cutout with confectioner’s sugar. Place the cutout cookies on top of the jam-covered cookies.

Makes about 2 dozen cookie sandwiches.