February 16, 2010
For Valentine’s Day, I made these heart shaped sugar cookies for my daughter’s class. What sets these cookies apart is that they are made with wheat flour and a little less sugar than most sugar cookie recipes. They are still tasty, bake up chewy in the center and crunchy on the outside. To decorate, I used royal icing, but they also taste great plain.
Decorated for birthday fun…
Makes about 18 -24 cookies.
Preheat oven to 325 degrees (convection is preferred, but not mandatory)
3 ½ cups white whole wheat flour, plus more for dusting (I buy mine at Trader Joe’s)
½ cup semolina
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 ½ cups sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Prepare two lined baking sheets with parchment paper. Sift dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cream sugar and butter in an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix eggs in one at a time and scrape the bowl with a silicon spatula to free up the stuck butter and eggs that form on the side. Add vanilla followed by dry ingredients and until fully incorporated.
Turn dough onto plastic wrap and form into a flat rectangular shape. Freeze for about 30 minutes until dough hardens (you can also put it in the refrigerator overnight).
Roll dough out on a lightly floured work surface, until about 1 centimeter thick. Cut with cookie cutters starting from the outside and moving your way to the middle. Take the scraps to then form another disk shape and repeat…if dough is too soft return it to the freezer for 15 minutes to harden up a bit.
Bake for 18 – 20 minutes rotating the trays in the oven after about 8 minutes. Cool on wire racks completely before decorating.
