I love Valentine’s Day. I have always loved Valentine’s Day. Randy gives me the same handmade card every single year and it is quite possibly one of my favorite things about having him as a dad. My mama and aunts send cards and socks with glittery hearts. My friends host crafting parties and we make fancy drinks and get our hairs cut. It’s a wonderful excuse to do lovely things with lovely people. And I love making valentines for all my sweeties!
Pink frosting and/or sprinkles is essential to making valentines cookies. Remember, the key is to make people sort of want to barf when they see how adorable they are, but then they take a bite and just want to take you out for BBQ chicken sandwiches and champagne as repayment. And yes, that is the way to win MY heart.
These are your basic sugar cookie and chocolate sugar cookie, rolled to ¼ inch, baked, cooled and decorated with royal icing. The recipe is a slight variation on my most favorite sugar cookie that came from my childhood bestie’s grandma. Bust out the heart-shaped cookie cutter!
sugar cookies
3 cups sifted flour
½ tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 cup salted butter, at room temperature
1½ cups sugar
2 eggs
½ tsp vanilla paste (to get those nice vanilla flecks, but extract works just the same!)
½ tsp almond extract
for the chocolate version: add ⅔ cup cocoa powder to the dry mixture and replace the almond extract with another ½ tsp of vanilla.
- Sift the flour (and cocoa for chocolate cookies) into a medium bowl and add the salt and baking powder. Mike’s grandma says to sift three times, and you can, but I won’t make you.
- Beat the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the eggs, one at a time, and mix until incorporated. Add the vanilla and almond.
- Mix in the dry ingredients until just incorporated. Dump the whole bowl into an airtight container or wrap in plastic wrap and chill a few hours, but preferably overnight (you can even make the dough a couple of days in advance).
- When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350℉. On a lightly floured surface, roll dough to about ¼ inch thick and cut into hearts. Bake 8-10 minutes (for medium to large cookies). The regular sugar cookies will just start to brown on the bottom edges and the chocolate cookies will puff up a bit and look set in the center.
- Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely before icing.
royal icing
2 cups powdered sugar
1½ tbsp meringue powder
3-5 tbsp warm water (start with 2½ and add as necessary)
Red food coloring
- Beat everything together until peaks form. Add food coloring until desired shade of pink is achieved.
note: depending on how many cookies you make, or how intricately you decorate them, you might need more or less icing. I made 3 batches of cookies, but used a small amount of icing on each cookie, and this was plenty. You can test the consistency by putting a small amount in a pastry bag and piping onto a plate or parchment paper. If it’s too thick, just add a bit more water. I used a #1 and #2 frosting tip.
And those seven musicians…the ladies and gents of Family and Friends, who first made me swoon when my dear friend/coworker leaned over our shared cube wall and said, “You should listen to my brother’s band!” (I was very nervous at first because you just never know if they’re going to sound really awful and you’ll have to lie and quickly change the subject to the weird smell in the copy room and avoid talking about music forever and always, but I loved them). Their album titles are pretty much already Valentines, and look as good on cookies as they do on records. BONUS, they’re playing a Valentine’s Eve show! You know I will be handing out cookies like it’s my job.
Happy Valentine’s Day. love you, mean it.