Unique Valentine Sugar Cookies

Basic No-Spread Sugar Cookie Dough

This dough won’t spread while baking and keeps the cut-out shape.

5 ½ – 6 cups of flour
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 cups sugar
2 cups butter
2 eggs

Cream together sugar and butter until fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla. Mix
together dry ingredients and add to butter mixture (adjust flour as needed).
Mix well. Chill. Roll and cut. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Note:
This makes a very large batch. Dough can be frozen or recipe cut in half.

Creative things to do to sugar cookie dough:

Color dough with food coloring
Add flavorings/oils to dough
Stir in crushed hard candy pieces or sprinkle on unbaked shapes
Spray cut out dough shapes with food coloring spray before baking
Stir in candy sprinkles in the dough

Colored Cream Dough

Use this dough in pastry bags to pipe on details before baking.

¼ cup butter, softened
¼ cup granulated sugar
6 tablespoons light cream or half-and-half
1 cup all-purpose flour
Paste food coloring

Beat butter on medium speed for 30 seconds. Add granulated sugar and
beat until combined. Beat in the cream. Add flour and beat until smooth.
Divide dough into portions. Color each portion with paste food coloring.
Place each color in a decorating bag fitted with a decorating tip. Decorate
cookies with the cream dough as desired. The dough must be stiff for the
designs to hold their shape so don’t add liquid. Bake as cookie recipe
directs.

*Recipes source: adapted from:

www.fancyflours.com
www.bhg.com/recipe/cookies/cream-cookie-dough/

Love Note Cookies

Make sugar cookie dough, roll and cut into a heart, scalloped rectangle
envelope or other desired shape. Bake and let cool. Cover cookies with a
light colored fondant. Use a food color marker to write a sentiment or love
note directly on the fondant. An option would be to write on edible rice
paper or wafer paper and adhere to cookie.

Sweet Heart Cookies

Make sugar cookie dough and cut into a heart. Using a smaller heart
cookie cutter cut out the center of the larger heart cookie. Place onto a
piece of parchment paper or Silpat mat to bake. Place a hard red or pink
swirled candy in the center of the small heart. Bake. The hard candy
should melt and fill in the heart. Let cool completely before removing form
baking sheet. These also look cute baked on sticks or use the same idea
with other shapes such as lips.

Lacy Heart Cookies

Frost baked cookies. Using a small round piping tip, randomly apply
squiggles of icing to top of cookie in one continuous motion. This is called
Cornelli Lace. Place tiny edible pearls randomly on the squiggles. This is
very pretty and elegant!

Doily Designs

Place a lacy paper doily (or other stencil) onto cut out shape. Spray with
food coloring spray, remove doily and bake. This also is very pretty when
this technique is used on frosted cookies whether it be buttercream, Royal
or fondant icing.

Stamped Cookies

Use new or very clean rubber or acrylic stamps. Saturate a folded paper
towel with liquid food coloring and use as you would a stamp pad. Stamp
images or words on unbaked cut out dough shapes before baking or baked
cookies covered with fondant. You can also press images into fondant with
no food coloring to deboss images into which creates a pretty effect on
cookies.

Egg Yolk Paint

Paint cookies with and egg wash paint made of egg yolk and food coloring
(can thin with water). It makes a glossy shine to the cookies. I like to pair
this with other decorating techniques on cookies.