Valentine Cookies 2014

My husband asked me "who are all of these cookies for?" .... and I replied "oh, family and friends".  He just looked puzzled and walked away.  I asked him later, why did he ask?  Did he want to know if he could eat them, did he want to take some to work?  He said, "no, I just wanted to know why you made so many cookies."  My batches of cookie dough usually make about 2 1/2 dozen average sized cookies.  I baked off 2 1/2 batches of cookies and ended up with over 6 dozen undecorated cookies...then through trial and error, I ended up with about 5 dozen assorted sized cookies, decorated for Valentine's Day.


So, my dear, that is a good question!  Why DO I make so many?  I always have all of these ideas - and I want to try them all - and I plan them out.  Then, I end up going off in some different direction and I end up with lots of cookies.  My friends seem to be happy to be the recipients of the excess cookies.  My family enjoys getting them, and Mr. Flip Flop said "I wouldn't mind taking some to work".  All those cookies will be gone in no time!


So, for the almost final batch of Valentine's Day cookies, I present my favorites of the Vanilla Bean Sugar Cookies for February 2014.  A lot of love in these cookies!  Enjoy show & tell  :-)

I am slightly addicted to DesignerStencils.  They are consistent
and beautiful and sturdy.  I have the least "trouble" with their
culinary stencils.  Nice people too!

I did a pearl spray over a stencil from Etsy seller StencilLand.  These
ended up being some of my favorite cookies and I actually put
them off to the end because I couldn't decide what to do with them.
White on white always seems so elegant to me.

Used various stencils - one from Designer Stencils and the other
two were just craft store purchases.  I enjoyed messing around with
"different" kinds of borders using my #13 Wilton tip.  I can't
find that tip anymore.  I'd like to have multiple tips.  I used a
#14 to alternate colors - they are nearly the same...but I can tell
the difference.

I kept my color palette fairly basic - pink, white, and red.
I thought about adding gray and soft pink but never
got around to it.  I like the traditional Valentine's Day
colors...and I love a very basic wet on wet technique.
Happy hearts!

These are a small sampling of the many "minis" I made this year.
Ian suggested stacking hearts (large up to small) but I make my
cookies so thick, it didn't look right.  I promised him I'd roll
and cut thinner cookies next year and try his idea.
For some reason, all of the polka dot double hearts I did reminded
me of men's boxer shorts.  Can't get it out of my head every time
I look at them.  (giggle)

Last, but not least, in my favorites were more stencils -
both pearl over red sprayed (stencil from Salsa Sweets)
and the pink on red from Designer
Stencils were larger stencils used on smaller cookies.
I also liked the simple royal icing rose in the center
of a red shell heart.  It reminds me of
a Valentine's card.

Well, those are my favorites of the ones I have finished.  I still have some large hearts to work on.  They were really big and hard to base coat...I'll see what I can do with them tomorrow!

Bon Appetit, Y'all!!!