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.

Sugar Cookies!

 Who doesn't love Sugar Cookies??? This is my all time favorite plain Sugar Cookie recipe (I have one for vanilla sugar cookies but I don't make them often). I have been asked so many times for this recipe so I am just going to put it up. It's from Once Upon a Tart..., by Frank Mentesana, Jerome Audureau, and Carolynn Carreno.

Sugar Cookies:

20 Tablespoons (2 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter                       Bake 350 F
2 cups sugar                                                           Yield: 4 dozen 2 1/2" cookies
2 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 1/2 cups flour
1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

1. Cream butter and sugar together in a big bowl, using the whisk attachment of an electric mixer on high speed (or sturdy wire whisk), until they are fluffy and lemon yellow, about five minutes. With the mixer on low speed, beat in the eggs, one at a time, then the vanilla.

2. In a separate, medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, and salt together. Add these dry ingredients to the wet with mixer on low speed (or a wooden spoon) until the dough forms a ball. The dough will be a bit sticky, but it should clean itself off the sides of the bowl once all the flour is incorporated. If the dough is too wet and sticky to form a ball, add a tiny bit more flour. Wrap the ball of dough in plastic wrap and chill 1-2 hours before rolling it out (I always skip this step because I find it makes the dough hard to work with).

3. When you are ready to make your cookies, position your oven racks so that one is in the center, and preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper (or use those flexible, no stick baking sheets. I can't remember what they're called!).

4. Use a kitchen counter or cutting board (or I use a roul'pat)--and dust it with a generous amount of flour (unless you're using the roul'pat). Cut the ball of dough into quarters. Starting with one chunk, roll it into a ball and set it in the center of your work area. Dust your rolling pin with flour,    
and set it on top of the dough. Gently press on the pun and begin rolling
out the dough to 1/4 inch thick. Dust more flour on the dough, rolling pin,
or board whenever things get too sticky.

5. The goal when cutting dough with your cookie cutters is to get the most

cookies out of each sheet of rolled out dough. So cut your cookies as close to one another as you can, like pieces of a puzzle.

6. Gently lift the dough onto your prepared baking sheet with a metal spatula. Arrange same-size cookies on the same baking sheet, so that they require the same amount of baking time (so that some don't burn while others are under-cooked). Leave a one inch space between the cookies.

7. Place the baking sheet on the center rack in the oven, and bake the cookies till the edges are a very light -golden-brown. For small cookies (2-3"), bake 10-12 minutes. TIP: you only want the edges golden-brown. As the cookies cool, they will crisp up. If you over bake till the whole cookie is golden-brown, they will be too hard to eat.

8. After a few moments cooling on the baking sheet, remove the cookies to a wire cooling rack to cool completely before frosting.

I always stack already cool ones to the side so I don't run out of room.

Royal Icing:


2 large egg whites, at room temperature
1/2 pound confectioner's or powdered sugar

1. Beat the egg whites and the sugar, using the whisk attachment  
of an electric mixer on low speed so the sugar doesn't fly around.
Once the sugar is moistened by the egg whites, turn the mixer up
 to high speed and continues beating for another 7-10 minutes,
until the icing is thick and shiny.

2. Divide the icing among separate ramekins or small bowls, and use food coloring to mix your own palette of colors.                  

3. Pretend you're Picasso.

I always use a pastry brush to put on my icing. It looks very professional and neat and is sooo much easier than a knife.

         This batch I only did sailboats and butterflies.

P.S. If you like cooking, check out jenniinthekitchen.blogspot.com