Valentine’s Day Treats: Cookies

Chocolate chip, gingerbread, and sugar cookies all make a great holiday cookie. Gifting or receiving a big batch of homemade cookies will make surly make anyone smile. Chocolate chip and also pretzels are great for dipping, as we did with the strawberries yesterday. Or you could try shaping M-n-M’s into a heart.  With the gingerbread and sugar, there is more room for creativity.  The clean, blank surfaces of these cookies allows for frosting, writing and much more. The cookies can be decorated to resemble candy hearts, along with sweet messages. Start by letting the cookies completely cool, while this is happening you can die white frosting with food coloring to make your desired colors. On a side note, the more food coloring you add to your frosting, the runnier it will become and loss the soft fluffy appeal. With the dyed frosting, cover you cookies and then fill a small plastic bad with some frosting of your color choice and outline the shape for a clean look. I let the cookies sit for a bit for the frosting to harden, and then I wrote messages in a different color. To make the fine lines you can either buy small frostings at the store, or scoop some into a plastic bag, then cut a small whole and push the frosting through. If you would like to try more complicated cookies, try using different shaped cookie cutters and decoration the cookies with unique patterns.  Try using poke-a-dots, lines, shapes or combinations. By using different colors for the patters, you can acquire a lovely look. Use the pictures provides for decorating guides. The cookie cutters for the cookies  in the bottom picture can be purchased at Target.

SG