Valentine’s Day

Hearts and chocolate. What a magical combination. Turn them into cookies and Valentine’s Day is really something to celebrate. (It doesn’t hurt to add a hug and a kiss to get the message across.) I love that this romantic holiday comes in February, while it’s still cold outside and all the Christmas holiday activity has subsided. It’s time to simply say “I love you.” What better way to do that than with a heart-shaped cookie? The only question that remains is: do you eat the cookie before or after the hug and the kiss? H-m-m-m. I say both before and after!

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Sweet & Sour Valentines

Sweet & Sour Valentines

These Sweet & Sour Lemon Cookies will make your lips pucker in the best possible way. The first bite is really tart because the glaze is made with fresh-squeezed lemon juice and a healthy amount of lemon zest. As you chew, the sweetness of the cookie itself — which has the barest hint of lemon — comes through to smooth everything out. It’s the perfect expression of love itself. I don’t know about you, but the people I love the most are also the ones that can break my heart.

Passion for Sugar

Sugary Passion

Oh-so-red and oh-so-delicious. I’ve already confessed to my passion about baking Brown Butter Cutout Cookies for Valentine’s Day (see With All My Heart). Now I’m admitting that red is my color of choice to decorate cookies for this holiday. But getting the right shade of red is not an easy feat because adding enough food coloring to get the red you want can sometimes negatively affect the taste of your cookie.

Sugar-Dusted Valentines

Sugar-Dusted Valentines

There are a two holidays where most people are inclined to throw caution to the wind when it comes to monitoring their sugar intake: Christmas and Valentine’s Day. So I saw no reason to hold back on these beautiful embossed Brown Sugar Cutout Cookies. After covering them with embossed homemade fondant (a yummy combination of white chocolate “dough” and melted marshmallows), I lightly dusted them with confectioners’ sugar for an elegant highlight. You’re welcome!

With All My Heart

Brown Butter Valentines

I   Valentines

Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite “cookie” holidays. This year I decided to decorate my creations in a variety of ways to celebrate the sweet side of love ... and to let my inner Cupid out to express the joy of the day. I chose Brown Butter Cookies as my canvas because the flavor is nutty, complex, and irresistible — a lot like love itself.

Valentine’s Cookies

Red and White Valentine's Day Cookies

Cookies can say a lot in just one bite. Each of these heart-shaped cookies says “I love you” ... “Be my Valentine” ... “You are special to me.” I am fortunate to have many people in my life that are important to me and every Valentine’s Day I go crazy making sure they know it. While decorating these pretty bites, I think of each one of my special people and can’t wait to let them know that they have a place in my heart, not only on February 14th, but every day of the year.

Stenciled Valentines

Stenciled Valentine Cookies

A few years ago, I made these five stenciled Valentine’s Day cookies as part of an experiment when I started exploring the world of cookie stencils. I decided I needed to work on my technique before making a whole batch of them! Even though they weren’t perfect, they didn’t last long. And that’s the beauty of making edible art. You can always eat your mistakes.

“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.” Winston Churchill

 

Classic Hearts

Classic Sugar Cookie Hearts

In our family, we always made our Valentines. At a very early age, I learned to cut hearts out of red construction paper and how to add glitter and paper doilies to dress up my creations. It’s no wonder that I still make my Valentines, but now they're edible. XOXO