recipe: heart shaped shortbread cookies

For Valentine's Day I made these yummy shortbread heart cookies for my family. I loove shortbread because it's like eating a piece of pure butter. For reals! I used this recipe but decided to make half with dried cherries and the other half with dried blueberries. I'm so glad I did because I'm sure a fan of dried blueberries now. They tasted a little bit like currents but sweeter and they're small so I didn't even need to cut them up. I'd definitely recommend making these for someone special..or yourself!

I used this recipe but changed and added a couple things, which I noted in bold

Dried Cranberry Blueberry and Cherry Shortbread Hearts
{Makes about 1 1/2 dozen 1 3/4-inch hearts}

Ingredients

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup sifted confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup finely chopped dried cranberries 1/4 cup dried blueberries and 1/4 cup dried bing cherries
• orange zest

Directions

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees.with a rack in center. Combine butter, confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, flour, and salt in a large mixing bowl. Beat with a wooden spoon until combined but not too creamy. Stir in dried cranberries fruit. {I used an electric mixer but was careful not to overbeat. I split the dough in half and added dried blueberries to one batch and dried cherries to the other}
2. Pat dough evenly into an 8- or 9-inch-square baking pan. Bake until just beginning to turn golden, about 20 minutes. Place pan on cooling rack until cool enough to touch, about 20 minutes. Run knife around edges, remove shortbread, and transfer, right side up, to work surface. Use 1 1/2- to 2-inch heart cookie cutter to cut out cookies. Use a paring knife to trim stray bits of cranberry from edges. 
3. I guess I should say I adapted this recipe because I decided to roll out the dough between two pieces of waxed paper, cut the hearts and then bake for 20 minutes. I thought it would be easier this way, especially after reading some of the comments. Cookies will keep for 5 days at room temperature in an airtight container.
4. Enjoy! 

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Phew thank goodness it's Friday! I was starting to feel a little stressed out yesterday thinking about all the wedding things I need to do but luckily my best friend is coming up to LA for a major craft session tomorrow. I'm getting excited thinking that in a few weeks some major things will be checked off the list I made a couple months ago. We're supposed to get some of our winter weather back this weekend so it will be easy to stay indoors and craft it out! 

I hope you all have a super, great, awesome, wonderful weekend!

xox