St Valentines Day

We're not heavily into celebrating the Day of St Valentine at our house, but after the kids had left for school I was overtaken by a sudden urge to .... defrost the fridge.  Because srsly: Look at it...



But once the fridge door was propped open and the towels put on the floor, I had another urge; this time to bake some heart-shaped biscuits for Mister Fixit.



When they were baked and I began organising the post-school/pre-tennis sustenance for the childer, I thought it would be good to bring some hearts to school for my lovely boysies so I could wish them a happy St Valentine's Day.  Then I thought that that would be a nice thing to do for Mavis' boys as well.  And then I thought let's go the whole hog and put some in a bag for the boys to give their teachers as well.  Possibly I was inspired by the little love note left on my bed by Climber last week, complete with instructions to build a lego loveheart.  Romance: at our house, it is alive and well, edible and build-able.



Orange Shortbread
from Everyday Cooking by Campion & Curtis, my favourite cookbook at the moment

255g (1 and 3/4 cups) plain flour

100g (2/3 cup) rice flour (I used cornflour)

250g soft butter, diced

110g (1/2 cup) caster sugar

zest of 2 oranges, chopped

pinch of salt

water, if required (I required it)

Preheat oven to 170oC.  Line baking trays with baking paper.  Rub together the flours, butter, caster sugar, orange zest and salt.  Knead well until combined.  Add a little water if the mix is very dry.  Roll to 0.5 cm thickness and cut into heart-shapes, or whatever you fancy.  Place the biscuits onto prepared trays and bake in preheated oven for 10-12 minutes, and cool on a rack.

For icing I used the juice of 1/2 orange, some sifted icing sugar (maybe 3/4 cup?) and some softened butter.