HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

Williams-Sonoma had this big heart cookie cutter in a recent catalog so I ordered thinking that my sweet granddaughter Ms. Belle and I would make cookies.  But alas, even a 6 year old (almost 7) is very busy these days what with homework, basketball, pesky school and skiing we could just not get together to make these big cookies.  So, I made five to deliver to her house today - one of these cookies is more than enough for one person. It must have been a popular item as they sold out long before Valentine's Day.

This cutter measures 8" across.  I have a lot of experience with large cookie cutters as I collected the beautiful cooper ones from Martha by Mail made by the talented coppersmith Michael Bonne. I have found that it is much easier to roll out and cut large cookies on the silpat mat that you are going to bake on, especially on any cookie with cut outs and this one has 10 cutouts.  It only takes about 6-7 minutes to bake each cookie and so I just did one at a time.  I used a flat cookie sheet, not a jelly roll pan and as I was ready to put another cookie on the sheet I put the hot pan under cold water so I had a cold surface to put the silpat back onto. I am very busy today and if I had more time I would also have put each cookie back into the fridge to chill a little more.  Anytime  you have a cutout in a cookie you must keep the dough chilled or the cutout will either close or not be sharp at all. These all came out OK but they would have been sharper had the dough been allowed to chill again.

 I just want to take a second to say Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. I hope whatever you are doing will be fun and happy.  I recently saw one of those maxims that goes around the web and thought it was exactly how I feel about love....."Love doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be true."

 Ready for delivery!

See yesterday's post for the sugar cookie recipe.

Royal Icing

Ingredients

• 3 tablespoons Meringue Powder
• 4 cups (about 1 lb.) confectioners' sugar
• 6 tablespoons warm water

Makes

About 3 cups of icing.

Instructions:

Step 1

Beat all ingredients until icing forms peaks (7-10 minutes at low speed with a heavy-duty mixer, 10-12 minutes at high speed with a hand-held mixer).

Step 2

NOTE: Keep all utensils completely grease-free for proper icing consistency.
* For stiffer icing, use 1 tablespoon less water.
**When using large countertop mixer or for stiffer icing, use 1 tablespoon less water.
Thinned Royal Icing: To thin for pouring, add 1 teaspoon water per cup of royal icing. Use grease-free spoon or spatula to stir slowly. Add 1/2 teaspoon water at a time until you reach proper consistency.

This is Wilton's royal icing recipe.  If you have another that you prefer all the better.  I have a love-hate relationship with royal icing but if you are going to stack cookies without wrapping each cookie individually or decorate cookies that look really clean and neat than you need to use royal icing.  It needs to be an icing that quickly hardens. I think one of the best cookies ever is just a good from scratch (made with butter) sugar cookie with buttercream frosting. You will want to use food coloring powder, not liquid food coloring.

Resource

Cookie Cutter, Williams-Sonoma
Silpat Mats, Costco, any specialty kitchen store  
Food Coloring used, Linnea's Cherry Pink, specialty & baking stores
Heart Tray, $store
Ribbon, foil garland and cellophane, Michael's & Hobby Lobby