Valentine's Day Cookies

Valentine's Day Cookies

Happy Valetine's Day everyone. For these Valentine's Day Cookies, I made blood orange cookies and share the recipe below, and also coffee cookies. I will share the coffee recipe at a later date as I am still perfecting it. The deep orange red color of a blood orange is very pretty and tastes like an orange mixed with berries. I used blood orange zest and freshly squeezed juice in the cookies. To boost up the citrus flavor, I added a little orange extract. See recipe below.

Yield: 3 Dozen Cookies depending on cutter size and cookie thickness

Some of my Valentine's Day Cookies

Valentine's Cookies

My Valentine's Cookies

Ingredients
5 cups King Arthur All Purpose Flour

1 1/2 cups Granulated Sugar

1 teaspoon Coarse Salt

2 cups, 4 sticks Unsalted Butter, softened

2 Large Eggs

1 teaspoon Orange Extract

1 tablespoon Zest of 2 Blood Oranges

3 tablespoons Blood Orange Juice, freshly squeezed

Rose Cookies

Rose Cookies

Lovely Rose Cookies

Directions
Whisk together flour and salt; set aside.

Cream butter and sugar in a hand held mixer or stand mixer with paddle attachment on low; 1-2 minutes. Do not overmix.

Scrape sides of bowl with spatula and mix for 10 seconds.

Valentine's Wafer Paper Designs from Fancy Flours

Love Wafer Paper Designs from Fancy Flours

Add eggs one at a time, mix until incorporated. Scrape sides of bowl and mix for 5 seconds.

Add blood orange zest, blood orange juice, and orange extract, and mix on low until incorporated, about 20-25 seconds.

Turn off mixer and add the flour mixture and cover the mixer with a large kitchen towel.

Hearts of all sizes

Envelope Cookies

Turn mixer on low speed, and mix until incorporated.

The dough is ready when it begins to clump around paddle attachment.

Form dough into a disk, cover with plastic wrap, and chill in fridge for 1-2 hours or overnight.

Yummy fruit flavor Brach's Conversation Hearts

Conversation Hearts

Conversation Hearts

Conversation Hearts

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Take half of the dough leaving unused dough covered with plastic wrap in fridge until ready to use.

Use two sheets of parchment paper with dough in between and roll with rolling pin until desired thickness is reached.

If needed, dip cutters in flour, shake off excess, and make shapes.

Heart Puzzle Cookies and Hearts

Hearts

Hearts

Place onto cookies sheets lined with parchment paper, and put in freezer for 20 minutes.

The cookies hold their shape when you do this.

Bake 8-12 minutes or until the edges have slightly browned. My cookies baked in 12 minutes.

Wait 2-3 minutes before transferring cookies on cooling racks to complete cooling.

Decorate once cookies have cooled completely.

Pretty Heart Cookies

Lip Cookie

Coffee Heart Cookies

Large Batch Royal Icing
Ingredients
8 Egg Whites

8 teaspoons Lemon Juice, freshly squeezed

12 cups Powdered/Confectioners' Sugar, sifted

1 tablespoon Clear Vanilla Extract

Blood Orange Zest

Directions
In a large bowl, sift powdered sugar; set aside.

In a bowl, add the egg whites.

In a bowl, whisk together the egg whites and lemon juice.

Transfer to stand or hand held mixer with paddle attachment and mix on high for 1-2 minutes.

Add vanilla extract and mix for 5-10 seconds.

Turn off mixer and add the powdered sugar and cover the mixer with a large kitchen towel.

Turn the mixer on low speed and beat until smooth.

Blood Orange Juice

Blood Oranges

The consistency using this recipe is thick and great for borders but I wanted a 10 second icing so I use a bottle filled with water and spritz a few times until I had the consistency I needed.

I found the best way to color royal icing is to separate the icing in plastic containers with lids according to the different colors needed for tinting. I save the containers when I get a pint of soup from Chinese takeout. They are great for icing. You can also use Tupperware.

Keep the containers or Tupperware covered until you are ready to color.

I used Gel Paste Food Color in turquoise, pink, super red, orange sunset, purple, leaf green and golden yellow.

For each color, dip a toothpick in the color and then swirl it into the icing and mix together. Repeat until you reach the desired color.

Then I transferred each color into icing bottles.

The color process

Color completed and in icing bottles

When I prep I lay out my sprinkles and used almost all of them

I outline each cookie and then immediately flood it.

Use a paintbrush or cookie stick to reach edges, and use tip of cookie stick or a toothpick to pop any air bubbles.

Add sprinkles, confetti, sugar pearls, dragees, etc... over wet icing.

If you are doing layers over the icing you need to let it dry overnight before you continue.

I use Gourmet Writer Food Decorating Pens (Certified U.S. food grade) for some of the cookie designs.

Let cookies dry overnight. This is essential so the icing does not stick together when you stack them or place in cookie tins for gifts.

For the Royal Icing Recipe visit, Joy of Baking:
http://www.joyofbaking.com/RoyalIcing.html

For the Decorated Rose Cookies visit, Sweet Sugarbelle:
http://www.sweetsugarbelle.com/2014/01/decorated-rose-cookies/

For the Easy Decorated Rose Cookies visit, Sweet Sugarbelle:
http://www.sweetsugarbelle.com/2015/04/easy-decorated-rose-cookies/

To Learn How To Make Decorated Banner Heart Cookie, visit Lila Loa:
https://www.lilaloa.com/2017/01/how-to-make-decorated-banner-heart.html

Enjoy!

-Sophia/Two Frys