If you make anything heart-shaped with icing it's a guaranteed winner with the kids. This is a very basic but easy chocolate biscuit. The key is to chill the dough and roll out to an even 3mm thickness.

125 g chilled butter or non-dairy spread (I used Olivani this time and it worked well)
2/3 c coconut/brown/rapadura sugar (I used organic golden sugar that I put in a spice grinder first)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg
1/4 c cornflour
1/2 c cacao or cocoa powder
1 1/2 c flour

Cream the butter, sugar, vanilla and salt in a bowl. Add the egg and mix until just combined. Mix in the cornflour, cacao and flour. Continue adding flour until the dough forms a ball and pulls away clearly from the sides of the bowl.

Wrap the dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for at least 30 min.

Preheat oven to 180C. Line 1 or 2 baking trays with baking paper.

Roll out the dough to 3mm thickness and cut into shapes using cookie cutters. You can place them close together on the tray as they won't spread.

Bake for around 10 min, until you can see the cookies too dry and firm around the edges.

Cool completely on a wire rack, then decorate using royal icing.