Friday, February 11, 2011

Valentine's Cookies!

Today was Keegan's Valentine's party at school. My first thought was of course to just run to the store and buy a box of Wall-E Valentine's for him to pass out at school. But, after a little thought, and those of you that know me, know that I always have to go a little further. So my next idea was to make heart sugar cookies and frost them with glaze that hardens. Then I would have Keegan write his name on each cookie with edible ink markers. However, a quick trip to Michaels put a halt on that idea when I the price of the edible ink markers. I had also let it get kinda late in the day and wasn't sure the icing would harden enough to Keegan to sign them before he passed out in bed. So I settled on this idea. Heart sugar cookies with his class mates names on them.

Here is the recipes I used.

Sugar Cookie

(This recipe makes about 5 dozen. I halved it and had PLENTY to make 9 very large heart cookies and about a dozen smaller cookies)

Ingredients


1 1/2 cups butter, softened
2 cups white sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
5 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

Directions

In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight).

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely.

Icing

(I doubled this recipe and had just enough ice the 9 large cookies and some swirls on about half of the smaller cookies)

Ingredients


1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 teaspoons milk
2 teaspoons light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon almond extract
assorted food coloring

Directions

In a small bowl, stir together confectioners' sugar and milk until smooth. Beat in corn syrup and almond extract until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add more corn syrup.

Divide into separate bowls, and add food colorings to each to desired intensity. Dip cookies, or paint them with a brush.



I used white icing and outlined the heart, then wrote the name in white. Next I filled it in with the red icing. This took some time and was a little frustrating. Next time I will either do the red first then write the name (but I wanted everything to be the same level and the name not raised but set into the red) or I will make the red alot runnier so it oozes into the nooks and crannies more.



All the cookies decorated

Wrapped in red celophane, tied with red and white ribbon and a paper heart that says From: Keegan

1 comments:

Kate said...

SO cute, Jennifer! Of course you didn't just do store bought Wall-E cards!