Dark Chocolate and Cherry Shortbread

Dark chocolate and some sort of red fruit such as cherries or strawberries always seems to do the trick when it comes to valentines day. Instead of doing the same old when it comes to this treat I figured I would do something special and offer a buttery and decadent seeming shortbread. The chocolate and cherries in this are delicious! If you can’t find dried cherries then dried cranberries flavoured with cherry will do just fine. I know that I certainly won’t kick my husband out of bed for eating shortbread.

• 1 cup flour (I used nutri flour, an enhanced flour with whole wheat nutrition)
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 cup light butter
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/3 cup icing sugar or spelnda
• 1/3 cup dried cherries
• 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips

1. Prepare a pan by spraying it. I baked this in a stoneware pan and I highly recommend this for shortbread, if you don’t have one go for glass.
2. Combine the flour, cornstarch and salt.
3. In another bowl cream the butter, icing sugar (or splenda), and vanilla. Add the flour mixture a bit at a time. Add the cherries and chocolate.
4. Pat evenly into your pan and prick surface with a fork. Bake at 300F for 30-40 minutes. The shortbread should have a golden colour around the edges. Allow to cool in the pan for 30 minutes. Remove from the pan and slice.

Makes 8 large wedges. Each wedge contains 185 calories, 7.8 grams of fat and 1 gram of fibre. Ofcourse you can always cut into much smaller pieces for a more modest indulgence but for the holiday why not indulge a little. If making this in a square pan to share you can easily get 16 portions at 92 calories, 3.9 grams of fat and .5 gram of fibre as well. This is calculated using icing sugar, I used splenda in my latest batch which was nummy! This made the original 8 servings more like 165 calories, 7.8 grams of fat and 1 gram of fibre. Not bad at all for a lovely shortbread treat.