June 29, 2025
Some of you may know that May is an especially exciting month for our family. Not only because May is when we finally get to experience warmer weather, but it’s also the month where we celebrate all three of our birthdays. For Kev and I, we usually just go out to a local restaurant to eat dinner and then go back home and retreat into our favorite corners of our couch to relax. For Z, though, we had to make sure that we celebrated her birthday in a special way. Since I’ve been working on recreating some of my favorite foods to enjoy during afternoon tea, it made perfect sense to celebrate Z’s birthday with a tea party that features some of her favorite foods. A fruit platter is a no-brainer—it’s a healthy treat that we make for her every year for her birthday. While Z has become a bit pickier with new foods that we introduce to her, she almost never feels this way about fruits. No matter what fruits we serve her, she’s usually happy to eat them. Aside from the birthday fruit platter, I also try to create a sweet treat for her birthday each year. For her birthday tea party this year, I added additional foods that we typically love to serve with tea. Some of these foods include raisin and currant scones, curried chicken salad on cinnamon raisin bread, vegetable cream cheese on Asiago cheese bread, and heart-shaped jam pinky print cookies (similar in concept to thumb print cookies). The heart-shaped jam cookies are a new treat for this year, one that I created specifically to celebrate her third birthday. Over the years, I’ve created special treats to celebrate each of her birthdays. For her first birthday, I whipped up a batch of dragon fruit strawberry cupcakes and cake pops. For her second birthday, I made some wild blueberry whoopie pies. For her third birthday this year, Z helped me with making a batch of heart-shaped jam cookies. These cookies are loosely inspired by the ever-popular thumb print cookies. For my version, I used my pinky to form a heart shape instead of a thumb to form a circle. These cookies differ from other thumb print cookies in that they are more reminiscent of buttery shortbread cookies than typical thumb print cookies. For the jam filling, I used raspberry jam, a favorite of Z’s. With Z’s insistence on helping me with prepping the cookies, the kitchen has definitely become a lot messier in the process. The base of the cookies is very simple to make. I combine the ingredients in one bowl, roll and flatten the dough into circular cookies, and then use my pinky to press an imprint onto each piece of cookie dough twice, leaning right diagonally and then leaning left diagonally to form a heart shape. Z tried to help with this process and pressed her little fingers unevenly into the cookie dough. The heart shapes from Z’s pinky turned out too small, so I had to adjust some of the cookies to make sure they were consistent in shape and size. Once shaped, I popped the cookie dough into the refrigerator to chill for 15 minutes. As the cookies were chilling in the fridge, I preheated the oven. Once the cookie dough was ready, we removed them from the refrigerator and filled them with raspberry jam. I tried to fill just enough jam in each cookie to prevent the jam from spilling during the baking process. I then popped the baking sheet with the jam-filled cookies into the oven to let the cookies bake for just about ten minutes. Given how quickly the cookies bake up in the oven, I had to keep an eye on them to make sure the edges do not become too brown. Once the cookies are done baking, I remove them from the oven and let them cool while I started on preparing the other food items for the tea party. The other food items did take a bit of time to put together and arrange, but the tea party was definitely worth it just to see the smile on Z’s face. We all enjoyed the light bites and fresh fruit while we sipped tea and read Z a new book that we gifted her for her birthday this year.
For Z’s Birthday Heart-Shaped Jam Cookies:
(makes 18–20 small cookies)
· 1 stick (½ cup) + 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, room temperature
· 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
· 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
· ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt
· 1 egg yolk from a large egg, room temperature
· 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
· 1¼ cups all-purpose flour
· good quality raspberry jam (or your favorite jam)
Directions:
1) Line a large baking sheet with a sheet of parchment paper. Set aside.
2) In a large bowl, cream together the unsalted butter, dark brown sugar, granulated sugar, and sea salt until smooth. Mix in the egg yolk. Add in the vanilla extract. Stir to combine all ingredients. Fold in the all-purpose flour and mix until well combined.
3) Use your hands to roll out individual balls of cookie dough (about ½ inch in width). Place the ball of cookie dough onto the parchment-lined baking sheet. Gently flatten the cookie dough to form a slightly flattened cookie. Repeat until all the cookie dough is used and about 18–20 small cookies are formed.
4) Using your pinky, at a diagonal facing right, gently press your finger into the cookie dough to form an indentation. Turn pinky at a diagonal facing left and gently press your finger into the cookie dough again to form a heart shape. Repeat with the remaining pieces of flattened cookie dough. Transfer the sheet pan with the heart-shaped cookie dough pieces to the refrigerator and chill for 15 minutes.
5) While the cookie dough is chilling in the refrigerator, preheat oven to 375°F.
6) Once the cookie dough has chilled for 15 minutes, remove the baking sheet from the refrigerator. Using a small spoon, scoop some raspberry jam and place it in the center of the cookie dough where the heart shape is. Using the spoon or your fingers, spread the jam until it fills up the heart-shaped cookie. Repeat until all cookie dough pieces are filled.
7) Transfer the baking sheet into the oven and bake the cookies for about 9–10 minutes. Check the doneness of the cookies at the 9-minute mark to ensure the edges of the cookies do not become too brown. Let the cookies cool for 5 minutes before enjoying.
Here is Z trying to read the book we got her for her third birthday while I’m in the middle of taking photos of the tea party.
Takeaways: I made these cookies a few times during the development and testing phase and noticed that chilling the cookies for at least 15 minutes helped to ensure that the cookies bake more evenly. When using my home oven, between 9 and 10 minutes seemed liked the right amount of time to yield cookies that were just lightly brown around the edges. For any leftover cookies, I like to store them in the refrigerator for up to 3 days. When warming the cookies from the refrigerator, I place them on a baking sheet and bake at 350°F for about 5 minutes.
Here is Z trying to sneak in a couple of treats before I even finish snapping photos of the tea party.