Kitchen Krafts

1. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl.

2. In a separate bowl, beat the margarine and sugar together until light and fluffy. Mix in the eggs and vanilla.

3. Gradually add the flour mixture, stirring after each addition. The dough should be quite stiff. Cover it and chill at least four hours or overnight.

4. Divide the dough into four sections. Flour a rolling pin, then roll out the dough on a floured surface to 1/8″ (3 mm) thickness. Cut out heart shapes with a floured cookie cutter, then do one or all of the variations suggested on this page. Place cut-out cookies on a lightly greased cookie sheet and bake at 375°F (190° C) for 7–9 minutes. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Put a Popsicle stick on the cookie sheet. Place a cookie on the top and use your fingers to press the cookie to the stick; bake. When the cookie is done, let it cool a few minutes before carefully lifting it off the cookie sheet with a spatula. Let the cookie cool completely, then frost and decorate it with cinnamon candies.

Poke two small holes near the top of each heart cookie with the drinking straw (see illustration). Brush one cookie with egg white and sprinkle it with colored sugar; then bake both cookies. Using the cookie cutter, trace two heart shapes onto white paper and cut them out. Make holes in the paper hearts to line up with the holes in the cookies. Decorate and write a message on one of the paper hearts. After the cookies have cooled, put the paper pages on top of the plain cookie, then place the sugared cookie on top. Tie with ribbon.