Valentine's Day Hearts

Little iced shortbread hearts make the perfect accompaniment to a creamy Valentine's Day pudding - perhaps the strawberry mousse, or a fruit fool.  They are very easy to make, and you get lots of practice with the icing!  (As you can see, my icing skills are nothing to write home about)    They appear to be browner than bought shortbread, which is because they are made with butter, not with some kind of artificial spread.

Iced Valentine's Hearts

Valentine's Day Hearts 

5oz/150g plain flour

3 level tbsps rice flour – if no rice flour, substitute plain flour

2oz/50g caster sugar

4oz/100g butter at just above room temperature

1-2oz/25-50g icing sugar
small quantity of water

Preheat oven to 170deg C/325 deg F.    Grease a large baking sheet.   Mix together the flours and the sugar.    Add the butter and work it into the dry ingredients.   It will form a dryish dough, which you knead a little before rolling (this stretches the gluten and makes the biscuit stick together better).  

Roll out the dough between two pieces of greaseproof parchment, about .5cm thick.   Cut out the shapes and transfer using a fish slice to the baking sheet.   Bake until golden – the butter in the mixture will brown while your back is turned, so check it frequently after 15 minutes or so.       

This quantity of ingredients made a whole tray of hearts and rounds in different sizes.   

Make up the icing by putting three quarters of the sugar into a bowl, then adding first a little water and beating it together to get rid of the lumps, then enough water to make it soft enough for writing, yet not so soft it blurs (easier said than done, look at the picture!).   Add more icing sugar if necessary.   Use a piping bag with nozzle, or make one by snipping the corner off a plastic bag.   I found that simple designs worked better than words.