Valentine Cookies

This recipe made about 40 3-inch heart shaped valentine cookies. They are light and a little flaky, and super delicious! I got it from www.recipezaar.com (#155480).

Ingredients:
2 cups butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
4 cups flour
1/2 cup baking cocoa
1 bag white chocolate baking chips
6 red chocolate candy melts
1 Tbsp shortening
1/2 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions:
1. In a mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar until well creamed. (I read on a baking website the other day that to actually cream butter and sugar, you should mix in a mixer for 7-10 minutes...I mixed for about 2).
2. Beat in vanilla.
3. Combine flour and cocoa in separate bowl; gradually add to creamed butter mixture.
4. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough to 1/4-inch thickness (if they are too thin, they will break apart after baking).
5. Cut with a heart-shaped cookie cutter and place about an inch apart on baking sheet (I use stones for everything I put in the oven).
6. Bake at 350 for 8 to 10 minutes.
7. Remove to wire racks to cool.
8. In a microwave safe bowl, heat vanilla chips, shortening, and red chocolate candy melts until melted, stirring every 20 seconds. DO NOT OVERCOOK! It will burn quickly!
9. Dip both sides of the cookie into melted mixture (so you make a v-shape from the point of the cookie out to the middle of both rounded tops).
10. In a ziploc bag, melt the semi-sweet chocolate chips in microwave, kneading every 20 seconds until well melted (again, DO NOT OVERHEAT!)
11. Drizzle over cookies as desired.
12. Place on wire rack to dry.

For the ones with the hearts on them, I used a wilton cookie cutter that has a stamp in it for valentine cookies. We stamped the heart design into the cookies and traced them with red cookie icing after the cookies cooled off. Then we drizzled with chocolate! Yummy!