Cookies and hearts and cookies and hearts.

I cannot think of a better way to celebrate Valentine’s Day than with ombre heart sable cookies! I mean, it doesn’t get more lovey-dovey than that. Amiright?!

A few weekends ago, Pat and I stopped in to this cute French bakery while we were exploring Memphis in hopes of a single chocolate cupcake with white frosting to celebrate his birthday. We arrived just as they were closing for the day, but they let us in to ogle over the pastries that were left.

No cupcakes remained, but there were two cookies – thin, crumbly shortbread-like cookies half dipped in chocolate. Sold. The placard referred to them as ‘sables’ which I came to later find out is the French word for sand. As you make the sable dough, it appears very sand-like before you add in the egg. Look at us – we’re learning something new!

And they were so delicious. Perfectly delicate and buttery and exactly what Pat I needed. My thoughts immediately jumped to how these could be dressed up for Valentine’s Day. I found a recipe from Martha Stewart and followed the ingredients to a T, but changed up the process a bit. Make sure you scroll all the way to the end of this post to get the details.

As with all cut out cookies containing a lot of butter, chilling the dough is imperative.  This dough is chilled immediately after it’s made, throughout the rolling and cutting process, and again before the cookies go into the oven to bake.  It does lengthen the process, but it insures that the cookies will hold their shape. Don’t rush, be patient.

As for the white chocolate… I have a love-hate relationship with white chocolate. It’s a perfect canvas to add color to, but it is not very easy to work with – white chocolate will seize up if overheated or if too much liquid is added.

Because of this, you want to make sure you divide your white chocolate by the amount of colors you want to top your cookies with and heat each individually before adding the food coloring.

Once you are all done decorating, all you need is some cute packaging! I picked up these cute cellophane bags and silver twist ties from Michaels. Perfectly packaged.

If you make any of my recipes and post on social media, use the hashtag #imhungrybynature so I can check it out!  And don’t forget to follow Hungry by Nature:

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Ombre Heart Sable Cookies

• Prep Time: 1 hour
• Cook Time: 15 mins
• Total Time: 1 hour 15 mins
• Yield: 4 dozen cookies 1x

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Description

A delicate and crumbly French cookie perfect for your sweetheart!

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Ingredients

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For Sable Cookies

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 large egg yolks
• Pinch of salt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for work surface
• 1 large egg yolk, for brushing as needed

For Ombre White Chocolate Topping

• 8 ounces white chocolate, separated
• Food coloring

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Instructions

For Sable Cookies

1. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat; set aside.
2. Place butter and sugar in the bowl of a food processor; process until creamy. Add egg yolks, salt, and vanilla; process for 30 seconds until combined. Add 1 cup flour and process until smooth. Add remaining cup of flour to processor; process to combine. Turn dough out onto work surface and split in half, forming each half into a flat disc; wrap with plastic wrap and transfer to refrigerator until chilled.
3. Flour your work surface and roll out half of the dough until it is 1/8-inch-thick. Using a small fluted heart shaped cookie cutter, cut out dough and transfer to lined baking sheet. Gather scraps and place in fridge with the baking sheet to chill.
4. Repeat using the second half of dough.
5. Roll out scraps and repeat. All of your cut out cookies should chill for 30 minutes before baking – this will keep the cookies spreading in the oven.
6. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
7. Mix together remaining egg yolk with 1 teaspoon water; brush tops of cookies with egg yolk mixture. Transfer to oven. Bake until cookies are pale golden, 12 to 15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

For Ombre White Chocolate Topping

1. Once the cookies are cool, separate the white chocolate between 4 microwave safe dishes. Melt according to package directions, one at a time.
2. Add in desired food coloring. I used increasing amounts of red dye to achieve shades of pink and one red with one drop blue dye for purple. (Note: White chocolate will seize if it is over worked. I found that as I added more food coloring, it significantly thickened.)
3. Frost your cookies.

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Don’t go breakin’ my heart.