Queen of Hearts Red Velvet Cookies

Lovely crinkle heart cookies

I have a new place of employment and I kid you not that when I was hired more than one person in the central office said, "So long as you keep the 'Evil Table' stocked we'll get along just fine."

I run a kitchen (an entire school district's food services but I'm in a kitchen nonetheless) so it's not a stretch for people to expect me to cook or bake. Plus I do cook and bake and I talk about it all the time.

Elsewhere at the same time while I was switching places of employment I was reading a lot about career changes and growth and came across the idea that the woman who brings in cake will never get promoted to the corner office.

Frankly I was torn. Not that I have visions of corner offices in the district where I work, but how do I want to be perceived professionally? Do I want to be the Baker Woman or do I want to be the brilliant MBA?

I want to both and I know that I can be, well because I am.

And baking ones own cake and buying donuts on the way in are entirely different things. And the people who recognize that are the people who will also recognize my brilliance at organizational transformation.

It's all about transformation...lets save that for a different day, shall we.

Anyway, cookies are so much more understated than layer cakes and the Evil Table isn't refrigerated and one can snag a cookie as one walks by, therefore I've been a little cookie distracted lately.

Plus I've been watching Once Upon a Time, marathon style on Netflix, so I was struck when I came across a red velvet crinkle cookie on the internet. It was a recipe that started with red velvet cake mix and that just wouldn't do. So I set about making my own, from scratch, recipe.

Because of all the imagery in OUAT, when a refrigerator repair man showed up at work, in uniform, short, bald, paunchy, and charmingly friendly all I could think was "He looks like a dwarf! He looks like  dwarf in present day!" Marathon television watching does have its drawbacks.

The recipe took two attempts. And ironically, I've made these on the weekend, not on a school night, so they will not even see the Evil Table; I assure they will be all gobbled up before you can say, "Off with her head!"

Red Velvet Crinkle Cookies

2.25cup flour
.5 cup cocoa
2 teaspoon baking powder
.5 teaspoon baking soda
.5 teaspoon salt

.5 cup shortening
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
.5 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon sour cream
1 tablespoon red food color -paste is best

confectioners' sugar for rolling dough in

In a bowl combine dry ingredients.
In a mixing bowl cream shortening and sugar. Add eggs and mix until fluffy and you don't see sugar granules. Add the vanilla, sour cream and food coloring. Mix thoroughly.

Add the dry ingredients until just combined. Scoop into 30 balls. I use a food portion scoop. Split the balls 3/4 to 1/2 way through. Freeze for 45 minutes.


Split the dough with a knife or bench cutter, more deeply than you think necessary. They halves grow back when baking.



Make the hearts more pointy on the bottom when tossing them in confectioner's sugar.

Preheat oven 350 degrees. Generously roll the cookies in confectioner's sugar. Reinforce the heart shape as you handle them, getting sugar between the heart lobes. Place on parchment covered cookie sheet and bake 12 minutes.