Valentine Cookies

Last year at this time we were in the middle of trying to raise money for Lakley to go to Paraguay on a humanitarian  trip.  We decided to make Valentine cookies to sell.  We took orders and sold them by the dozen.  It ended up earning her $1,000 towards her trip.  We baked for one week and froze everything and 2 days before Valentines we decorated and decorated and decorated.  I learned so much about floating icing because we had so many cookies to decorate… 500 to be exact.  I think about it now and I wonder how we did it, but we did and it was very successful.

I shared my sugar cookie and royal icing recipe here on my post in December for Christmas cookies.  These Valentine cookies basically have 3 different techniques we used to decorate.  All 3 techniques start the same but have different outcomes.  I’m sorry I don’t have pictures of these steps.  After baking your sugar cookies and making the royal icing follow these steps to decorate your cookies.

1 step:  Outline each cookie using the royal icing with a round tip and set aside to dry.  This basically acts as a barrier for the icing when you go back to float it so the icing doesn’t run over the cookies sides.  It gives your cookie a finished look.  Wait to thin your icing until this step is done.

2 step:  Once each cookie has been outlined thin your icing like described in my previous post.  You will now fill in the rest of the cookie with the icing.  You can pipe it or even spoon it but the best way I decided was to use a squirt bottle.  Squirt icing on the cookie and the icing will float out to fill in all the space.  Sometimes I will use a toothpick to help this happen smoother.  If your consistency is right it will continue to smooth out as it sits.

 The last step is how the 3 different techniques differ.  The “love” cookie in this picture shows the first technique and was done after the icing had completely dried I just piped onto the cookie.  You can pipe words or anything you would like.

Technique 2 is the polka dot and hearts in a circle cookies.  While the icing is still wet you can do dots or words or shapes in other colors that will dry with the rest of the icing melding in and giving the cookie a fun look.   The hearts in a circle is dots around the outside and then with a toothpick drag it thru the dots to create the hearts.

The 3rd technique is the cookies with the large hearts.  A few days before our decorating marathon I piped large hearts onto parchment paper and let them dry completely.  This one was fun because after floating the cookie all we had to do was place the dried heart in the center.  I think they are my favorite but it is hard to pick a favorite.

Here is the finished project.  I found these clear boxes at a local store here in Utah called “Pak-n-Wrap” a fun store that carries all sorts of unique containers.

I hope you try these icing technique this year on your Valentines cookies.  It does take some practicing but it is a lot of fun!