Chocolate Cookie Cutouts

We have been snowed in for the past few days, so what better activity to do with the kids than bake cookies!? Of course, Valentine's Day is upon us so I wanted to make something heart-shaped. I tried out Martha's Chocolate Cookie Cutouts (page 239) recipe.

I made the dough last night, and refrigerated it overnight. When I took it out of the refrigerator to roll out this morning, it was fairly hard. But with some muscle power, I was able to roll it out thinly onto the parchment paper. I also got to use my new kiddie cookie cutter from Sur La Table. I had to press the nonpareils into the cookies to get them to stay put.

I was so impressed with the cookies when they came out of the oven! In the past, when I have made cutout cookies, the shapes have oozed and turned into giant glops that in no way resemble the intended shapes. These were perfect hearts! They were beautiful and tasted yummy too. They weren't too sweet (my husband suggested they would be delicious made into a sandwich cookie with icing in between). This recipe was in the "crispy & crunchy" section of the cookbook, but the cookies were soft and delicate when I made them.

Since it's Valentine's Day, I wanted to make more heart cookies, especially since one of my daughters is not a huge fan of chocolate. I also wanted to try out my new Kuhn Rikon cookie press. I bought it to use with one of the Martha recipes, but I haven't been able to find a key ingredient so today, I just used the recipe in the booklet that came with the press.

The press came with 14 different disks that shape the cookies, including hearts, flowers and of course, pumpkins and bats, among others. It took only a minute to figure out how to assemble it and insert the dough, and soon enough, I had perfect little hearts! They were fairly small, so I could fit LOTS of them on one cookie sheet. I can't wait to try out all the other shapes!