White Chocolate Shortbread Hearts

White Chocolate Shortbread Hearts

Christmas time at the café was a wonderful time!!! All the new smells… Gingerbread, cranberry bread, peppermint scones just to name a few. We had a cookie walk that we would literally make thousands of cookies for.  Tracie and I would sit down in September and start deciding what cookies we would have in the walk. Most of the ones from the year before would make the list. And we would always try to find new ones to make to add to our list just to make it a little different. People would line up outside the cafe waiting for the cookie walk to start!! It was my favorite time at the café.

We used to make shortbread cookies at the café and dip them in Ghirardelli Chocolate.  We would make the shapes of the cookie based on the holiday.

Now I have to confess, I used to tell my customers everything was made from scratch. Which 99.99999% of everything was. This recipe is where “from scratch” kinda gets blurred. You see, this cookie, ok prepare yourself because here comes my big confession, this cookie starts out as a cake mix. Yes, a cake mix. Ok, there I’ve said it. I’m admitting that it’s not completely from scratch.  Whew…..

I hope you’ll still follow me.

You see, we started out using this recipe to make Neapolitan cookies for the cookie walk. We used vanilla cake mix, chocolate cake mix and vanilla cake mix mixed with cherries and food coloring. We would layer the cake mix’s in a loaf pan, refrigerate them and then slice and bake them.  After those turned out pretty good, I thought why not make cookies out of any cake mix?  So I was on a mission.

I found Betty Crocker’s Cherry Chip cake mix and thought I would give it a try. I made the dough then rolled it out and cut out little angels. Usually we dipped the cookies in chocolate, but I decided because they were smaller than our normal cut out, to just drizzle them with the white chocolate. Let me tell you, they were bliss!! They immediately went on the Christmas cookie walk list.

So you’re probably wondering why I’m calling them shortbread cookies when they come from a cake mix? The answer – you add a whole pound of butter to the mix. What is one of the main ingredients in Shortbread? Butter!! Ergo they taste just like short bread!! Trust me on this.

I made these for my grandchildren for Valentine’s day this year. Finn, Max, Logan and Audrey. The 4 little people that have the key to my heart!! Besides, I couldn’t wait until Christmas to share this with you.

Make them for your valentine.  And if you don’t have a valentine, make them for you!!

Teri

1 box of cake mix (as mentioned above, I used Betty Crocker’s Cherry Chip cake mix)
1 pound of butter softened (4 sticks)
2 ¾ cup of flour

Set oven to 350°.

Line cookie sheet with parchment paper or liner.

Put all ingredients in a mixing bowl and combine until dough starts coming together.

 

Work dough with hands to make a ball. Wrap dough and refrigerate for ½ hour so the dough is a little easier to work with.

Flour work area so dough doesn’t stick. Roll dough out to ¼ thickness and cut with cookie cutter. Put cut outs on cookie sheet 1 inch apart. Cookies will spread a little.

Bake in oven for 12 -  14 minutes or until edges start turning golden. Remove from oven and let sit a minute or two, then remove them from the cookie sheet and put cookies on a cooling rack. Let cool completely before dipping in chocolate.

I used Ghirardelli bark to dip my cookies in. If you can’t find it, you can always melt down white chocolate chips with 1 tsp. of shortening. With either the bark or the chips, melt in microwave for 30 second increments stirring after each interval until completely melted. Or you can melt the chips with the shortening on a double boiler on top of your stove.

Dip or drizzle chocolate on cookies and wait until chocolate is set.

This made about 36 cookies for me.

Enjoy!