Red Hot Love Cookies
Hello, lovers. I know it has been a little tame around these parts. A little lovey-dovey. A little girly. A little too sweet, if you know what I mean. Today’s recipe is intended to counteract all that sickly sweetness with a giant punch of flavor, right in the kisser.
If you’re the type who likes a little heat with their sweets, this is the cookie for you! These Red Hot Love cookies scoffed at my delicate Watercolor Rose Cookies and spit in their faces, then they flexed and kissed their biceps a few times. Metaphorically speaking.
Metaphorical machismo aside, these cookies are awesome for folks who love bold flavors. They start with a deep, dark chocolate cookie dough flavored with espresso powder, cinnamon, and cayenne. Then they’re sandwiched with buttercream flavored with cinnamon oil, which is nothing like ground cinnamon. You know the flavor of Red Hots, or Atomic Fireballs, or Hot Tamales? That is cinnamon oil, and that is what gives these cookies such a crazy, spicy, deliciously different flavor. If you’re a spice weenie, you can of course reduce or omit the cayenne and cinnamon oil from the recipe, and I won’t even judge you. (Much.)
To give these cookies appropriate sex appeal, I topped them with glittering red and gold disco dust. Whenever I post a recipe with disco dust, I invariably get comments and emails yelling at me, telling me that it’s not edible. To which I say: you’re right. (Please don’t email me about it anymore.)
My position is usually that disco dust, while not sold as an edible product, is nontoxic, and is not uncommonly used in cake decorating, so a small amount as part of a decorative element doesn’t bother me personally. You may feel differently. That is swell. Group hug.
However! These cookies are different in that the amount of disco dust I wanted to use was, to put it in precise pastry terms, a mega bunch, and it seemed excessive even by my lax personal standards. I just didn’t want to be picking disco dust out of my teeth the whole night after eating one cookie. So rather than brush the dust directly on top of the cookie, I made little fondant plaques and put the disco dust on the fondant. The plaques are attached to the cookies with just a few dots of corn syrup, so they can be popped off before eating. Everyone wins! I get cookies that are sparkly and beautiful, my loved ones don’t have to eat big mouthfuls of disco dust, and my inbox remains a beautiful Shangri-La full of only the most positive, complimentary emails. Aaaaaahhhhh.
If you don’t want to go to the trouble of making the fondant plaques, you could omit the dust entirely, or top the cookies with regular sprinkles instead, or brush the tops with FDA-approved luster dust. (Or court certain death by sprinkling the disco dust directly on top. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.)
Did I mention that these are a huge hit with adults and kids alike? Because they are. (And did I mention that my particular kid is the cutest one ever? Because he is.) My toddler son really liked these, but he does have a decent spice tolerance. Your mileage may vary with your little ones, so consider reducing or eliminating the spices if they’ll primarily be served to kids.
These would be so darling for a Valentine’s Day party, or as edible Valentine gifts. Think of all the groan-worthy puns you could write on the accompanying card! Of course, now that I’ve written that, I’m drawing a total blank, but you’re much more clever than I, so I’m sure you’ll come up with something good. Mwwah!
⇒ Click Here for the Recipe - Red Hot Love Cookies
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