Valentine’s hidden heart biscuits
I’ve seen these hidden heart biscuits before, they’re perfect for Valentines day but I wasn’t sure how easy they would be to do with kids. It turns out they’re really quite simple – there are a few different steps to do, none of them are difficult, but you do need a bit of patience as you need to chill the dough a few times. I think they’re worth the effort and the kids loved making and eating them!
Ingredients
300g plain/all-purpose flour
200g butter, softened
120g golden caster sugar
2 egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla extract
red food colour
Method
Rub the flour and butter together
Get your kids to measure the flour (300g) and butter (200g) and add it to a large mixing bowl. Start using a knife to cut the butter in and give it a good mix, then use your finger tips to rub the butter into the flour until the mixture resembles bread crumbs.
Add the remaining ingredients
Measure the sugar (120g) and add it to your bowl. Add the vanilla extract (2 tsp). If your kids are very little, either do this bit for them or do it together where you hold the measuring spoon while they pour it out or vice versa.
Add the egg yolks to your bowl. This is normally a job I do myself – crack the egg and let the white fall into a bowl. You can pass the egg yolk from one half of the egg to the other until all the white is in the bowl and all you have left is the yolk.
Mix everything together with your hands until it comes together into a ball.
Make the hearts.
The first step in making these hidden heart biscuits is to make the heart centre.
Take around a third of the dough and add some red food colouring to it. Knead it until the colour is fully mixed in. Wrap the remaining, plain dough in cling film and pop it in the fridge.
Sprinkle a little flour down on your work surface and get your kids to roll the red dough out. It can be quite thick and it doesn’t matter too much if it’s not completely even so this is a great job for little chefs.
Cut out hearts (around 3-4cm across) and stack them up on top of each other, pressing them together gently. Once you’ve cut out all the hearts you can, bring the remaining dough back together and roll it out again. Repeat this until you’ve used all the red dough, then wrap it in cling film and pop it in the freezer for a few hours.
Form the hidden heart biscuits
Once the heart centres are hard, roll the plain dough out into three sausages then length of the heart column using your hands.
Add a plain biscuit sausage to each side of the heart column, patting it down until you cover the hearts entirely. Gently roll the dough into a round cylinder.
Wrap the dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for 2+ hours.
Bake the Valentine’s hidden heart biscuits.
Preheat the oven to 180C/160C Fan/350F and line 2 baking trays with baking paper.
Once it has hardened, using a sharp knife cut the dough into slices about 1 cm thick and place them on your baking trays.
Bake in the oven for around 18-20 minutes, until they are just about turning a nice light golden colour.
Remove the Valentine’s hidden heart biscuits from the oven and leave to cool on the trays for a few minutes before putting on a wire rack to cool completely.
