Valentines Cookies Recipe Ingredients:
1 cup butter or margarine, softened
(HINT: use butter, they sure taste better even if there are a few more calories. Oh My! You’re eating a cookie, not a piece of celery. Forget the diet for once!)
2 cups all purpose flour
2/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 -1/3 cups pecans, ground
a bit of powdered sugar
In a large bowl and electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until creamy, beat in the vanilla. Gradually add pecans and flour, blending thoroughly as you go. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until easy to handle (1 to 2 hours) or for up to 3 days.
On a floured surface, roll out cookie dough to a thickness of 1/8 inch. Cut out hearts with a 2 or 3 inch heart shaped cookie cutter. Put valentines cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheets. Space cookies about 1 inch apart. Cut out a hole in the center of half of the cookies, using a spoon or knife to make a 1/2 inch hole. Bake valentines cookies at 370 degrees, for about 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Transfer hot valentine sugar cookies to a cool place.
Sift a bit of powdered sugar on top of half the cookies with holes, in the center of each. Spread the other half of cookies with the raspberry jam. Place the sugar topped cookie on top each jam topped cookie. Will form a sweet Valentines sandwich cookie.
Store cookies in a air tight container.
Recipe makes about 3 dozen heart shaped Valentines cookies.