With this year’s Valentine’s Day falling on a Tuesday, there’s little time to cook complicated dishes for your loved ones, so here’s a super easy, fast and foolproof recipe for delicious cookies which – believe it or not – have a low glycemic load and are gluten-free!

Note, this recipe is compatible with LeBootCamp phases: Attack & Maintenance

Lil’ ante scriptum: I spent 6 hours filming this recipe and I was pretty proud of the result…then the memory card got corrupted and I lost it all! Argh…

Ingredients for the Valentine’s Day cookies:

• 2 cups cake flour (I opt for gluten-free, but regular flour works as well)
• 1 cup birch xylitol (sugar made from birch tree bark with a very low Glycemic Index, but classic white sugar works as well)
• 2 large pinches of salt
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 1 stick (4 oz) non-hydrogenated margarine, softened at room temperature
• Heart-shaped cookie cutter

Ingredients for the icing:

• 1 + 1/4 cups icing sugar
• 1 egg white
• 1/4 cup room-temperature water
• Optional: natural red food coloring

Directions:

1. Combine the flour, salt and baking powder. Set aside.
2. In a stand mixer, blend the xylitol and margarine until the mixture is very smooth (at least 2 minutes at medium speed). Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix again.
3. Gradually add the flour/salt/baking powder mixture.
4. Mix at medium speed for at least 3 minutes or until the flour mixture is well absorbed.
5. Separate the dough in half and knead each one into a flat round shape.
6. Wrap each dough disc in saran wrap and place in the freezer for 20 minutes.
7. Preheat the oven to 320° F (160° C) and clean your mixer as you will need it again for the icing.
8. After 20 minutes, remove the dough from the freezer and place it between two floured sheets of parchment paper.
9. Use a rolling pin to flatten the dough to a thickness of about 3mm.
10. Using a heart-shaped cookie cutter, cut out the cookies and then transfer them to a lined baking tray. As the dough is fragile, be sure to use a spatula to transfer the cookies.
11. Put in the oven (middle rack) for about 15 min, switching the direction of the tray about halfway through.
12. When the cookies are lightly golden, remove from the oven and set aside to cool.
13. Meanwhile, prepare the icing (note that this process requires careful attention so if you prefer to pass you can easily buy an all-natural icing or serve the cookies with whipped cream)
14. In the mixer, combine the icing sugar and egg whites at slow speed.
15. Add the water, then increase speed to medium-fast, and mix until you reach the ribbon stage where the mixture leaves a trail behind that is visible on the mixing bowl surface for about 3 sec before merging back into the rest (about 10 min of mixing is required to achieve this).
16. Reduce speed to slow and mix for 1 minute (to reduce air bubbles).
17. If you’ve opted to add natural food coloring, add it in now.
18. Transfer the frosting to a piping bag with a small tip and let your creativity speak as you decorate your Valentine’s Day cookies! (If you prefer to add the frosting at a later time: you can keep this mixture refrigerated in an airtight container for about 3 days, just be sure to mix it well before transferring to a piping bag.)

Happy Valentine’s Day!