Colorful Heart Cookies!

 Colorful Heart Cookies!

I had so much fun making these!

I began thinking of Valentine cookies a month ago..ever since I made the green Christmas trees. I wanted to tint half of the dough red and the other half pink. In the photos, you can barely tell the difference..and I used a lot of food color.

Here we go. Like I said, a lot of color!

 This is the pretty Rose color.

 I used these Wilton cookie cutters. 

 These too..

 I only roll out enough dough to cut out one or two cookies at a time. The chilled dough is easier for me to handle.

 I also use my dough scraper thingy to gently lift the cut-out. 

 I place them on parchment paper lined cookie sheets.

 Baked up and ready.

 I will show you step-by-step how I designed a few cookies. Use full strength Royal Icing to pipe the outlines. For the "flood"

(or "fill-in") icing..just add small amounts of water and stir gently till you achieve a glue-like consistency.

 This crinkle design was kinder to my blood pressure :o)

It was just easier to do the squiggly lines than the regular curved heart lines. Am I making any sense?..

Now just let these dry for an hour or so before going back to fill in.

 We switched from red to purple ;)

Use your flood icing to fill in the outer section of the cookie.

Use a toothpick to pull the icing into the corners.

 Still using the flood icing, drop dots into the wet icing.

 I LOVE these colors!

Without lifting up your toothpick, pull it through each dot all the way around the cookie.

 With a different color, add the next section and then more dots..

 After pulling your toothpick through those dots, add one more color section to the center of the cookie. A couple more dots, pull through and voila'..done!

Here's a pictorial of the next cookies.. 

 I like these square ones..

 Wheeee..fun..

 I really love the somewhat "unstructuredness"

of this design!

 This tiny little cookie is so cute :o)

 flood..

 dot..

 pull..

 After flooding the cookie, wait for the air bubbles to rise to the surface. Use your toothpick to pop them.

 Lots and lots of dots...

 LOVE!

 Here's where I really had some fun!

With no piped borders..the flood icing runs off the edges.

 Pull the toothpick from the center out.

 I added more dots just 'cause I could!

 Again, I pulled the toothpick from the center out.

 This was one of my favorites..until I swiped my hand across it and ruined it!

Be careful out there ;o)

 Ahhhh...finished cookies..all ready for their nap...

 These colors (rose and red) were beautiful together!

 

Cookie Dough Recipe

3 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup confectioners sugar

2 sticks salted butter (softened)

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

gel food colors ( I used Wilton red, rose and violet)

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Combine flour and baking powder in a separate bowl.

Cream butter and sugars in mixer.

Add egg and extracts mixing well.

I used my mixer to color my dough as well..only mixing till combined on low. Scrape down sides of bowl and another quick mix.
Gradually add flour mixture till combined, then chill dough. 
Bake @ 350 ~ 10-12 minutes 
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Royal Icing

4 cups confectioners sugar

4 tablespoons meringue powder

6 tablespoons warm water

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

And after trying Bake at 350's idea to use light corn syrup..i added 1 teaspoon!

~~~~~

Mix all ingredients on low 7-10 minutes.

Happy Baking and Creating

from

Sugartown Sweets!

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR STOPPING BY MY BLOG TODAY!

I would love any and all comments letting me know what you think of this post :o)