Snazzy Valentine's Cookies

Cookie Recipe

This recipe is from a cookie book my parents had in the 1980s and I don't know where it is anymore or even if it is still in publication. Luckily, I wrote it down in my wedding present recipe book twenty-five years ago and have been making these cookies at least once a year ever since.  All my children love them.

Emerging in the eighties, these cookies aren't heart smart or anything like that, but neither is cheesecake, another wonder food containing cream cheese I discovered in the eighties.

The much used cookbook.

Here is a readable recipe:

Cream Cheese Butter Cookies 

1 cup butter, softened
75 grams (3 oz.) cream cheese
1 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon freshly grated orange peel
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 + teaspoon cinnamon

Heat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream the butter, cream cheese and sugar. Separate the egg, (and save the egg white for your dog or a healthy omelette.)  Add egg yolk, vanilla and orange peel, grated on the finest grater. (I find freshly grated orange peel gives these cookies zing. I have never made them with the dried stuff in the spice section.) Mix.  Add the flour, salt and cinnamon; stir together either before or while piled on top of the dough before mixing in.  Turn on low so the flour doesn't go flying.

If your butter was really soft, you might want to chill the dough for an hour or so before rolling it.

Put it onto a floured surface in two or three batches in balls you have made with your floury hands, and with a floured rolling pin, gently roll out the dough. Be careful not to roll it too thin or the cookies will be crispy. A good solid 1/4 inch is about right.  Use a heart shaped cookie cutter to cut out the cookies and carefully lift onto an ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake for 12-15 minutes, depending on how cold the dough is and how hot the oven is. I find 12 minutes in my oven bakes the thin cookies perfectly with just a bit of gold on the bottom. I don't like them as well crisp.

Let cool on cookie sheet for ten minutes before lifting them with a spatula onto the cooling rack.

The recipe says makes 48, but I get 36. Maybe my cookie cutter is bigger. The plate below is a side plate, to give you an idea of their size.

Do not ice! Icing would ruin the subtle orange, cinnamon and cream cheese flavours.

Aren't the orange flecks cute? These cookies are addictive.  I can't eat any other kind of sugar cookie anymore; they have ruined me.  But I can eat them with chocolate, just once a year.

Denman Island chocolate with a cookie, styled by my daughter.

If they all get gobbled up at once, don't worry. You have enough cream cheese left for two more batches. Enjoy!

Happy Valentine's Day, though these cookies are good anytime.