Happy Valentine's!

A flower from my amazing dad. Love you Dad!!

Peanut Butter Fudge Hearts

     Here is yet another Valentine's day recipe! Last week, I put up directions for Maine Valentine's and Candy-Cookie hearts so now, here is my final recipe before Valentine's Day. After the day itself, there's no need for recipes because everyone can gorge themselves on half-price chocolate!

     This recipe is from our ancient and well-used copy of Betty Crocker's Cookbook.

Ingredients:
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup of milk
1 cup peanut butter
2 T. light corn syrup*
2 t. vanilla
4 to 4 1/2 cups powdered sugar

*Corn syrup isn't something we usually keep around so I used this recipe to make a substitute.

Directions:
Mix sugar, peanut butter, milk, and corn syrup in a 2-quart sauce pan. Heat to boiling over medium heat, stirring frequently. Boil and stir 1 minute; remove from heat. Cool, without stirring, till bottom of pan is lukewarm, about 45 minutes. Stir in vanilla. Stir in powdered sugar, a cup at a time, until mixture is very stiff. Press into a greased 8x8 pan (I used a 9" circle pan). Refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.


In order to get the hearts, I used a cookie cutter after the fudge was set. Because the fudge was thicker than the cutter was tall, I pressed it down as far as possible and then used small tongs to pull out the cutter and shape.

Place shape on a piece of foil, or a plate, or whatever you want. Use your fingers to keep pressure on the shape and gently lift the cutter.

Mine turned out really, really well. You could really do any shape you wanted as long as it didn't have tiny pieces and edges; small projections would probably break off. I wrapped some in foil for my family for Valentine's day:

All the little pieces left over from cutting out the shapes I cut up and put in a bowl. Wonder how long that will last. ;) Enjoy and... don't get a stomach ache!

Candy Valentine's Hearts

These are super easy Valentine's hearts with a candy middle. You can do them any shape though for any occasion. Stars work well as do leaves.

Use this sugar cookie recipe and make 1 batch. Roll it out. For each cookie, cut out 1 large heart.

Remove the dough from around it and cut a smaller heart out of the middle.

I ordered a set of five heart cookie cutters from King Arthur Flour. The largest is the outside of the cookie and the smallest is the inside heart.








Transfer this frame to a baking sheet.

Now, for the candy part. Take a handful of Jolly Ranchers, unwrap them, place them in a Ziploc bag, and then put that bag into a paper bag, and crush them with a hammer. The pieces need to be very small. If you want to center to be a specific color, you'll have to separate the colors before you crush them. If you don't, it will turn out either marbled (which would be very cool) or brown (which would not be very cool).
Fill the frame with crushed candy-- but do not over fill!!

Bake however the recipe says to. When they come out of the oven, the candy should be liquid and bubbling.

Leave them on the tray for at least 10 minutes. When the candy is clear and the cookie is cool, try lifting just the edge. If the candy peels off the tray and stays with the cookie, it's cool enough to move it to a cooling rack. If you try to move it too soon, the candy will get messed up and stick to everything.

You could always frost the frames but I like them plain.
Back to the note about overfilling the frame, this is what it looks like when you overfill it:

This was not on purpose. I overfilled the first one I made. Oops.

I made these for my classmates in a few classes and I wrapped them in tin foil to keep them clean and make it look nice.

Place cookie on piece of tin foil. 

Fold top and bottom over.

Fold left side into a triangle.

Fold the triangle over the cookie. Fold the other side over and flip over.

I pressed the edges to make the heart show up but you don't have to.
Sharpies show up well on the tin foil so I used a red one.

Happy (early) Valentine's Day!

A Very Maine Valentine's

Maine has all these things about it. Unique things. But no Valentine's treats (except candy lobsters). These are very Maine and very Valentine's. It was my dad's idea. ;)

Since the focus is on the shape and decorating, I'm not going to post a sugar cookie recipe. This one is what I used though and I really like it. 

So, what you are about to make is a bakery-worthy Maine Valentine's cookie. So you'll need:

1 batch sugar cookie dough

1 lobster cookie cutter

1 heart (or other shape) cookie cutter

Roll out the dough and cut out a lobster and a heart.

Remove the dough around the cut-outs and move the lobster to a baking sheet.

Now, take the lobster cookie cutter, and use the tips of the claws to cut shapes out of the heart.

Place the cutter just over the edges of the dough (above) and then slide away (right). This will leave a cut out of the bottom of the heart in the shape of the lobsters claws. This will keep the cookie from having a big lump in the middle. That probably doesn't make sense yet but the next step should clarify it.

Place the heart on the baking sheet just about the lobster and slide it so that the lobster's claws fit into the cuts you made in the hearts. Like a puzzle. Press down to seal them together into one cookie.

Slide them together...

...press to seal.

Bake the whole thing according to the directions in the recipe. Let it cool for awhile when it comes out of the oven because if you try to move it to a cooling rack while it's warm, the tail or the claws will probably break off. On that note, you should probably make more of these than you think you need because they break a lot when they're fresh.

Make the icing from the recipe above and put a small amount of red food coloring in it to make it pink. Frost just the heart(s).

I made mine with a cookie cutter that was two hearts stuck together.

Add more red food coloring to the icing to make it red. If you don't like food coloring, you don't have to use it. Or you could find a natural alternative. It's up to you.

Now do the lobster with the red icing.

Tada! I made one of these for each of my teachers and they all liked them. I think they're really funny. And yummy (I made a rhyme!). I use a pastry brush to apply the icing because it makes it thinner and it gives it a really smooth icing. Also, the recipe for icing in the recipe I mentioned at the top is perfect for brushing on. It also hardens in an hour or two so you can package the cookies without ruining the frosting.