Cookie Lollies

I made these a few days ago to try out some Valentine's ideas, they aren't too hard to make and would make a great present!

Ingredients:

110g unsalted butter
55g caster sugar
170g plain flour
1/2tsp vanilla extract
300g royal icing - can buy ready-to-mix version from most supermarkets.

Equipment:
mixing bowls
heart shaped cookie cutter
lolly sticks
baking sheets
piping bags (or sandwich bags with a small cut at the bottom)

Step 1:
Preheat the oven to 140 degrees celsius and grease 2 baking sheets. Then measure out all your ingredients.

Step 2:
Cream the butter and caster sugar together until fluffy, then mix in the flour until it comes together in a soft ball. Cover the mixing bowl with a tea towel and leave in the fridge for 15 minutes.

Step 3:
Roll out the dough on a floured surface and using the cutter cut out the heart shapes from the dough. At the bottom of each heart carefully push the lolly stick into the dough until the stick nearly reaches the top of the cookie. Place on the baking sheets with a space in-between each cookie and bake for 10-15 minutes or until they are just golden brown.

Step 4:
Once baked leave the cookies on the baking sheet to cool for about 10 minutes then transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

For the decoration.

Step 1:
Follow the instructions on the royal icing to transform it into soft-peak icing - runny icing that holds it shape slightly, and add the food colouring you wish to use. Then spoon the icing into a piping bag and pipe a heart onto each cookie. Leave it to harden. Turn your soft-peak icing into runny icing using the instructions on the pack and flood the inside of the heart with the runny icing being careful to not fill the heart with too much as it will run over the outlined heart.