-Salted Butter -Sugar -Vanilla -Egg -All-Purpose Flour
-Baking Powder -Melting Chocolate
In a large bowl, use a hand mixer to whip the softened butter and sugar until fluffy.
Add beaten egg and the vanilla to the creamed butter and mix to incorporate.
In a separate bowl, mix the all-purpose flour and the baking powder.
Add half the flour to the creamed butter and mix just until a wet dough forms. Add the second half of the flour and mix gently until a stiffer dough forms.
Roll the dough into a ball, but do so quickly. You don’t want to overwork the dough, as it will create a tough texture.
Place the dough between two sheets of parchment paper and roll the dough ¼ inch thick, or about the thickness of an ear lobe. Cool for thirty minutes in the fridge. Place a rack in the center of your oven and preheat it to 350°F.
Once the dough has hardened, cut out the cookies, remove the scraps from the cookie sheet, and leave the cookies behind. Roll any scraps out on a separate piece of parchment, and chill before cutting them into cookies
Place the sheet of parchment paper with the cookies on a cookie sheet or sheet pan. Bake the cookies at 350°F for 3 minutes. Next, rotate the sheet pan so the front faces the back—then bake for 3 to 4 minutes until they slightly lighten in color.
Cool the cookies in the sheet pan for a few minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack. Decorate when cookies have cooled.
Melt the chocolate in a bow. If using a microwave, melt in 20-second increments, stirring after each. If using the stove, place the bowl in a pan filled a third of the way with water. Bring the water to a boil, then turn off the heat. Leave the bowl in the water and stir until the chocolate melts.
Dip half of the cookie in the chocolate and garnish if you’d like to. Then place it back on the cooling rack, allowing the chocolate to harden. Give these amazingly cute Valentine’s Day cookies out to your loved ones, but make sure to save some for yourself!!