Chocolate Shortbread for Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day...Wikipedia says that this day, February 14 is an annual commemoration to celebrate love and affection between intimate companions. I think most men hate this day because they have to impress their partners with romantic dinner and bouquet of flowers and will usually cost them a lot of money. On the other hand, it might be worthwhile spending the money to avoid any disappointment, bad memories and future unexplained nagging...speaking from experiences...LOL.

I have been asking myself, what is the best gift for the person that you love?... Obviously, not expensive dinner and flowers. To me, it's "Appreciation"! For this beloved occasion, I've made heart-shaped chocolate-drizzled shortbread. This basic almond shortbread recipe is from a Worthwool promotional magazine (December 2010) and I've sandwiched them with a thicker version of chocolate ganache and drizzled them with lots of melted chocolate. Ops!...it looks like a messy job...

I was happily packing these shortbread into my husband's lunch box and he was happy too telling me all positive feedback about this sweet treats... Nice to know this.

This is the inside of a non-drizzled shortbread. As you can see, it has a great crumbly texture.

Here's the shortbread recipe from Woolworth promotional magazine 

I have reduced the recipe proportional to make 20 of 4cm x 4cm heart shortbread.

50g butter, at room temperature
25g Icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
55g plain flour
20g almond meal
1 egg white

Line Baking tray with baking paper. Preheat oven to 170°C
Using an electric mixer, beat butter, icing sugar and vanilla until light fluffy. Add flour and almond meal. Stir until combine. Turn dough onto lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Refrigerate for 20 min or until firm. Roll out dough to 5mm thickness and cut into shapes. Brush shortbread with egg white and bake for 20 min or until light golden brown. Allow to cool completely on tray.

Thick chocolate ganache
50g dark chocolate
30ml double cream

Mix both chocolate and cream together and microwave them in low power until the chocolate melts. Allow the ganache to cool to room temperature and apply onto one side of the shortbread and sandwich another one on top of the ganache. Place the sandwich shortbread on a wire rack or baking paper. Using a microwave in low power, melt dark chocolate and drizzle on top of the sandwich shortbread. Allow chocolate to set.

Happy Baking.
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