Heart shaped faces. Cookies

Preparation time 30 mins to 1 hour

Cooking time 10 to 30 mins
Vegetarian


Ingredients
Suitable for freezing before decorating.

100g/4oz slightly softened butter
50g/2oz caster sugar
175g/6oz plain flour
pinch of salt
a few drops of vanilla essence

For the icing:
100g/6oz icing sugar sifted
½tbsp lemon juice or water

For the decoration:
small tubes red, yellow, green and black writing icing (available in most supermarkets)
mini coloured sugar balls used for cake decoration for the eyes

Method
1. Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4. Beat the butter and sugar together either by hand with a wooden spoon or in an electric mixer at low speed until thoroughly mixed. Sift together the flour and salt and mix this into the butter mixture together with a few drops of vanilla essence to form a fairly stiff dough. If the dough is too dry add a little water. The beauty of this dough is that you don t need to leave it in the fridge to firm up but can use it straight away.
2. Form the dough into a ball using your hands, then roll out thinly on a floured work surface using a rolling pin dusted with flour. Cut into heart shapes using biscuit cutters. Collect all the trimmings together and roll these out again to make more biscuits. Arrange on greased or lined baking sheets and bake for about 12 to 15 minutes or until the biscuits are lightly golden.
3. To make the icing, put the icing sugar in a bowl with enough lemon juice or water to make a good spreading consistency. Spread the icing onto the cooled biscuits with a small palette knife. When set decorate each cookie to look like a face using the tubes of writing icing and sugar balls for eyes.

by Annabel Karmel from Complete Party Planner