Name: Valentine's Day Cookies
Prep time: 50 min
Cook time: 7 min
Total time: 1 h 27 min
Yield: 24
Cuisine: American
Ingredients: 12 Tbsp salted butter, softened* ($1.78); 1 cup sugar ($0.32); 1 tsp vanilla ($0.57); 1 large egg ($0.42); 2 cups all-purpose flour ($0.24); 3/4 tsp baking powder ($0.05); 1 lb melting chocolate* ($3.99)

1 In a large bowl, use a hand mixer to whip the softened butter & cup of sugar until fluffy.

2 Add the beaten egg and vanilla to the creamed butter and mix to incorporate.

3 In a separate bowl, mix the all-purpose flour and the baking powder.

4 Add half the flour to the creamed butter and mix just until a wet dough forms. Add the second half of the flour and mix gently until a stiffer dough forms. Roll the dough into a ball.

5 Place the dough between two sheets of parchment paper and roll the dough ¼ inch thick. Cool for thirty minutes in the fridge. Preheat your oven to 350°F.

6 Once the dough has hardened, cut out the cookies, remove the scraps from the cookie sheet, and leave the cookies behind. Roll any scraps out on a separate piece of parchment, and chill before cutting them into cookies.

7 Place the sheet of parchment paper with the cookies on a baking sheet. Bake the cookies at 350°F for 3 minutes. Next, rotate the pan, so the front faces the back—then bake for 3 to 4 minutes until they slightly lighten in color.

8 Cool the cookies in the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack. Decorate when cookies have cooled.

9 Dip half of the cookie in the chocolate and garnish if you'd like to. Then place back on the cooling rack, allowing the chocolate to harden.