“Melt in Your Mouth” Molasses Valentine’s Day Cookies

Preheat oven to 350ºF and line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Add flour, sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and baking soda to the bowl of a stand mixer with a flat beater attachment and stir to combine. Alternatively, this can be done by hand in a large bowl, by mixing with a whisk or spatula to combine.

Add coconut oil and mix slowly until the mixture has turned to coarse crumbs using either a stand or hand mixer.

Add molasses, water and vanilla to the crumb mixture. Mix until incorporated and dough forms into a ball. You may choose to add extra water (1 teaspoon at a time), if necessary, but be careful not to over do it, otherwise the dough will be too sticky and difficult to manage.

Turn dough out onto a piece of parchment paper and shape into a flat disk. Roll between two large pieces of parchment to ¼ inch thickness. Cut into shapes using cookie cutters, pastry or pizza slicer or a knife and using a spatula transfer cookies to onto lined cookie sheets.

Bake 6-8 minutes, until slightly darkened around edges. They will still be soft when you first take them out of the oven, but they will harden as they cool.

Place sugar in medium sized mixing bowl, add 4 tbsp of almond milk (you can add more as you go if needed) and beat until it's a nice thick mixture- approx. 2 minutes. Add beet juice while beating, 1 tsp will make a very bright pink hue, you can play around with how much you add depending on the colour you desire.

Take half the icing mixture and transfer to another bowl, add 2 tbsp of almond milk and continue to beat until you achieve a runny texture. This portion of the icing is perfect for dipping/ flooding the cookies.