Beat the butter and the sugar in a mixing bowl thoroughly.

Add the egg and vanilla extract (optional) into the mixing bowl and mix thoroughly.

Add the remaining dry ingredients (baking soda and flour) into mixing bowl and ensure the mixture is evenly distributed.

For the best results, refrigerate the dough for at least a couple of hours, preferably overnight.

Preheat the oven to 180°C (160°C fan/ gas 4).

Sprinkle your surface with flour and rolling pin with about 10g of flour and roll out the dough to about ½ cm thickness.

Cut out shapes in the dough using your heart-shaped cookie cutter.

Place the shaped cookies onto your baking trays keeping them at least 2 ½ cm apart.

Bake in the oven for about 20 minutes.

Check to see if the cookies are fully cooked by placing a wooden pick/ cake tester into the middle of each. If they come out clean, then you are good to go onto the next step!

Let the cookies cool in the baking tray for about 5 minutes and then transfer them to wire rack and leave them until they are fully cooled.

Melt a bar of chocolate of your choice in a microwave safe bowl.

Cover half of the batch of cookies with the melted chocolate.

Mix the cherry concentrate, icing sugar and water in a bowl to create the cherry icing.

Cover the other half of the batch of cookies with the cherry icing.

Let the sugar cookies cool at room temperature for about 15 minutes.

Next, enjoy!