Valentine’s Day Cookie Recipe

This recipe is a gift from my a dear friend, Anne, who graciously shared her grandmother’s recipe after I fawned over her delightful cookies. I hope that you will find them to be delicious enough to adopt into your stable of “go to” holiday desserts.

Yields 24 Cookies Measuring 3” each

3 Cup Flour

2 teaspoons Baking Powder

¼ teaspoon Salt

1 Cup Butter Softened

1 Cup Sugar

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

½ teaspoon Almond Extract

1 Egg

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2.  Sift four, baking powder and salt in small bowl and set aside

3.  Cream butter and sugar in standing mixer

4.  Add vanilla and almond extracts and egg

5.  Slowly add flour mixture 1/2 cup at a time to butter mixture until combined.

6. On counter roll dough to ¼” thick using a minimal amount of flour on work surface and rolling pin. 

6.  Cut out cookies with cookie cutter and place them on a cooking sheet.  You do not need to chill this dough. 

7.  Bake for 8-10 minutes until the cookies have lifted but are not golden in any way.  They will look like they did before you placed them in the oven. Cool completely on cooling rack before icing the cookies.

Perfect Cookie Icing

4 Cups Powdered Sugar

6  Tablespoons Whole Milk

4 Tablespoons Light Corn Syrup

1 ½ teaspoons Almond Extract

Outline Icing

1.  Whisk sugar and 3 Tablespoons of the milk until smooth

2.  Add corn syrup and almond extract . Whisk until smooth. 

3. Remove approximately ⅓ of the Outline Icing from the mixing bowl. This is the Outline Icing. The icing that is left in the mixing bowl is the Flooding Icing (see below for instructions)

4. Divide the Outline Icing into small bowls. One for each of the colors you will be making.

5. Add the food coloring to the Outline Icing and transfer to individual disposable pastry bags. 6. Cut the tip of the pastry bag so that you have a very small hole - the size of a dull No.2 pencil lead.  

Note: To test if you have the right consistency for the Outline Icing, lift the whisk out of the bowl - the icing falling off the whisk will be ribbons of icing in the bowl for about 3-4 seconds before they melt back into the bowl of icing 

Flooding Icing

1.  To remaining icing add milk ½ teaspoon at a time until it is thinned. To test the if you have the right consistency for the Flooding Icing, lift the whisk out of the bowl the icing and the icing falling off the whisk will quickly dissolve back into the bowl of icing.

2. Separate the Flooding Icing into small bowls. One for each color of icing.

3. Add the food coloring to the bowls then transfer to disposable piping bags with a little bit bigger hole than the piping icing.