To protect your hands from staining, you will want to use disposable rubber gloves or a few Ziplock bags when coloring the candies. You’ll need one pair of gloves or one bag per color. If you’re using gloves, put them on first. If you’re using bags, you’ll add the coloring to the dough before placing it in a bag.

Use a few drops of food coloring with a coordinated flavor extract for each different color heart you’d like. Photo: Kate Williams

Knead the dough until the color is uniform throughout. Photo: Kate Williams

Using your fingers, make an indentation in the center of one piece of dough. Add a few drops each of food coloring and a flavoring extract. I tried to coordinate coloring with flavoring, but some matches are better than others (green=peppermint, yellow=lemon, blue=almond, pink=vanilla). Knead the dyed portion of dough until the color is uniform. You will likely need to sprinkle a bit more powdered sugar onto the dough to keep it from sticking to the counter. Taste a bit of dough and adjust the flavoring and coloring if necessary. Repeat with the remaining portions of dough.

A miniature heart-shaped cookie cutter will give the most classic results, but any size and shape are possible. Photo: Kate Williams

Next, re-dust the counter with a bit more powdered sugar, and roll out one portion of dough until it is somewhere between 1/8 inch and 1/4 inch thick. To cut out the candy hearts, I use a miniature heart-shaped cookie cutter that I found in a set at a cookware store. If you can’t find mini-hearts, you can use a larger cookie cutter. Transfer the heart cut-outs to a parchment paper-lined baking sheet to dry. Re-roll the dough scraps as many times as you’d like, and then repeat with the remaining portions of dough.

Once you’ve got all the hearts cut out, spread the hearts in a single layer on the baking sheet (use a second one, or a plate, if you need more space). Let the hearts dry completely before decorating—this will take 24 to 48 hours, depending on how thick they are.

Use an edible marker to decorate the hearts with whatever message you’d like. Photo: Kate Williams

Finally, once the hearts are dry, it’s time to decorate. I found a set of edible markers at the same cookware store where I bought the cookie cutters. They are also available in craft stores and online. I found that using markers was much easier than trying to use a stamp to decorate the candies. Plus you get to write whatever you’d like.

Recipe: DIY Conversation Hearts

Makes about 6 cups

heartshearts

DIY Conversation Hearts are a Fun Project for Valentine’s Day