[Are you sick of love hearts yet? There’s 363 days until next Valentine’s Day and the publishers got slightly overwhelmed with articles so this one is 363 days early, we’re on the ball this year!]
I bet you all thought I’d show how to make some sort of fancy chocolate for today?
NOPE!
I’m gonna show you how to make a better tasting and more personalised version of those candy hearts with phrases and words on them. Less chalky, you can have them say what you want and be whatever flavors and colours you want!
So lets get to it! You will need:
Ingredients
- 1 1/4-ounce packet unflavored gelatin powder
- 1/2 cup boiling water
- 1 tablespoon light corn syrup
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
- 2 1-pound boxes confectioners’ sugar, plus 1 cup for kneading
- Assorted food coloring, for tinting
- Assorted extracts (such as peppermint, strawberry, lemon, almond, whatever floats your boat), for flavoring (optional)
- Cooking spray
Equipment needed
- Special equipment: Food decorating pens, for writing on them. Get a fine point one. THIS IS A MUST OR THEY ARE JUST HEARTS
- Whisk
- Bowls or your very very clean cauldron
- Measuring cups
- Measuring spoons
- Parchment paper
- Baking sheets
- Rolling pin
- Tiny tiny heart shaped cookie cutters
- Wand (optional)
- Muggle stand mixer if you can use one at the time.
- Spatula
- Pastry matt (optional)
Instructions
- Whisk the gelatin, corn syrup, vanilla, salt and 1/2 cup boiling water in a stand mixer bowl until the gelatin dissolves. Using the paddle attachment, beat in the confectioners’ sugar on medium-low speed, 1 cup at a time, to make a stiff, sticky dough. If you can’t use muggle equipment use a spatula and a lot of elbow grease. If you can use magic, use the stirring spell!
- Take the dough out of the bowl and onto a clean surface, either the pastry matt or a very clean counter, and knead it, adding more confectioners’ sugar as needed (up to 1 cup), until the dough is smooth, pliable and slightly tacky, about 5 minutes. Do not over knead!
- Divide the dough into 4 pieces. Flatten 1 piece into a disk. (Cover the rest with a towel or something) Add a few drops each of food colouring and extract to the centre of the dough; fold in the sides and pinch closed, then knead until the colour and flavor is distributed. You can have fun here too as if you knead it less the colours are streaky so you can make multi coloured ones! You’ll do this with all four pieces with different colours and flavors, or one flavor and colour, the choice is yours here! You can even separate it into more pieces and use more colours if you want instead of just four. Just only work with one at a time and keep the others covered so it doesn’t get crusty.
- Lightly coat a piece of parchment paper with cooking spray. Roll out the dough on the parchment until 1/8 to 1/4 inch thick, really thin! . Cut out hearts using the small cookie cutters; and put each heart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Do this with all your dough, till its all used up.. Let the hearts sit at room temperature, uncovered, until dry and hard, about 24 hours, flipping them halfway through. When they are hard, Write messages on the hearts using food decorating pens. Or draw on them, whatever you want!
