Kids Craft: Chocolate Heart Shortbread Cookies

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valentines Hello hello! And welcome back to Kids Get Crafty! Today, we got crafty in the kitchen again, as we bring you our Chocolate Heart Shortbread Cookies… now before I go any further, I confess, that we did make these in February (when else) however, I do believe that you can tell people in your family that you love them at ANY time of year…  and with the long summer holidays just around the corner, isn’t it nice to vary your activities a  little? A little crafting..? A little baking…? A little sharing…?

We made a batch when we saw them over at Aly’s from plus2point4, but used our own super easy to remember shortbread recipe. Check out Aly’s recipe too, she adds some yummy orange…

And whilst on the subject of long some summer holidays.. I am chuffed to say that I am being featured every Monday over at Baby Budgeting throughout the summer holidays – go check out a weekly craft of ours to keep you going throughout the summer! You may have seen the crafts  before, but sometimes I find it helpful to be reminded of them! Becky’s Baby Budgeting is a great  blog to help you manage your family finances and well worth a look.

The Book

Guess How Much I Love YouGuess How Much I love You! By Sam McBratney. Well… there is only “One” book when it comes to showing your love.. actually there are many, and we have a number of them, but this really is rapidly becoming a “classic”, as it is lovely and sweet and everything in one. In our house it is particularly well like as it features hares and rabbits/ bunnies/ hares are VERY important to both my children. It is a simple story of a young hare and a big hare telling each other how much they love each other and “out doing each other in biggness of their love”. Perfect for a 3.5yrs old Red Ted who is into “bigger” and “biggest” things. It is of course very soppy, but very sweet… and who wouldn’t love this little book as a gift, accompanied by some yummy cookies???

The Craft/ Bake

We have two very trusted recipes that we use over and over again  – one for muffins and one for cookies.. It is such a simple cookie recipe, it tastes great and is fabulous for children… we have used them for Rainbow Cookies and for Alphabet Cookies! We have added Vanilla and we have left them plain.. They are great as they contain no eggs – perfect for small people when tasting raw dough! Today we revisit it:

Shortbread:

300g Plain Flour (2.5cups)

200g Butter (1.75 sticks of butter)

100g Sugar (0.5 cups)

+ Vanilla essence, natural red food colouring & CHOCOLATE!

+ A cookie cutter

Preheat the oven to 180C

It is such a versatile recipe that you if your vary the ingredients a little you will be fine too!

1. I always let the butter soften to room temperature first! Makes life much easier. Then I measure out all the ingredients and let the children tip them into the mixing bowl. We used red food colouring – more for the darker cookies, less for the lighter ones – a nice bit of colour mixing teaching thrown in…

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2. Roll out and cut your cookies!

3. Place in preheated oven for  20min or so – but keep checking on them until they look ready (firming up to touch and turning golden at edges). As we used natural food die, the lighter cookies didn’t hold as much colour!

4. Melt your chocolate in a water bath or in the mircowave and spread on with a spoon.

Enjoy! Why not make some for your friends and family?

For more Kid’s Craft ideas, click here for a full list. If you have been crafty with your kid’s be it at home, in the kitchen or outdoors, I would love for you to link up: