As Valentines Day is nearly upon us, I thought it was a great opportunity to try my baking skills (which are minimal) and combine it with my photography project. Having not done a great deal of baking in the past, this did provide quite a challenge especially due to the lack of correct equipment - I can highly recommend the correct type of pastry cutter otherwise you'll be hand cutting around a fiddly paper template and sharp knife ;-)

However, they certainly taste better than they look, and I even got some browny points for being romantic from my wife....

Luminous Photography is a commercial photographer in Berkshire

Makes approx. 12 Biscuits

• 300g plain flour
• 120g caster sugar
• 200g salted butter
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• frozen strawberries/ raspberries

Put flour and butter into a food processor and create to fine crumbs. Add sugar and yolks then whizz to a smooth dough. Remove 1/3 of the dough, vanilla to what’s left and pulse. Wrap this dough in cling film and leave at room temperature.

Put the reserved dough back in the processor with the dried raspberries and pulse. If the dough has become too soft, pulse in a few spoonfuls more flour until a similar consistency to the vanilla dough. Put the dough in the fridge, remembering to remove it 30 mins before you need to roll it out.

Thickly roll out the coloured dough between baking parchment. Use a small 3-4cm heart cutter to stamp out hearts. Keep re-rolling and stamping until all the dough is used. Line up hearts on top of each other and press to form a cylinder, taking care to retain the heart shape. Wrap in cling film and freeze for 3 hrs until solid.

When the heart dough is hard, roll the vanilla dough, using your hands, into 3 cylinders the length of the heart stack. Stick one to each ‘side’ of the hearts, pat together to form a fat cylinder, then gently roll on your work surface until it completely encircles the coloured dough, with the frozen heart dough hidden in the centre. Chill for 2 hrs.

Heat oven to 180C/160C fan/gas 4. Use a sharp knife to slice the log into 1cm-thick discs. Place on trays lined with baking parchment, allowing space for spreading, and bake for 20 mins. Cool on wire racks. Will keep for up to 4 days in an airtight container.

Source BBC Good Food