Happy Week of Love! I'm typically not a big Valentine's fan, but there is something about it this year! I keep seeing all of the pink and red hearts, cute stuffed animals, super cute outfits and it has just made me excited for the day. I don't have any plans, but I'm sure I will come up with something to celebrate the day of LOVE!
My team (at work) and I were talking about gifts the other day and we started discussing the difference between store bought gifts and homemade gifts. I am a big fan of homemade gifts, as I believe there is something a little extra special about putting your heart into making a gift. I have done homemade gift fr my family in the past and one way I like to make gifts is by baking! So, with this being Valentine's week, I wanted to share my favorite sugar cookies that would be a perfect gift for your Valentine or Galentine! I will take you step by step for making, baking and decorating these delicious cookies! I have also check with my grandmother, and I am not giving out any secret family recipe, so I will also include the recipe at the bottom! Here we go!
Almost all of your ingredients, pretty easy, right?!
Melt the butter, mix in the sugar, then 3 eggs, then add all of the dry ingredients!
When the dough is done, I save the last cup of flour for the rolling out of the dough. I also use the pastry mat because I have granite countertops and I don't want them to stain!
I take the dough, in small pieces, roll it out and use whatever cookie cutters you would like!
If you want a more fluid view of how I do the steps above, watch this video!
It will show you everything I do!
I bake the cookies for about 8-10 minutes, until the bottoms start to brown.
When the cookies are done, I place them on parchment paper to cool down, before any decorating takes place!
Now let's talk about decorating! When I make these with my grandmother, we typically make homemade icing. Since I am not allowed to do that without her, long story we will go over later, I chose to go with store bought icing and then dyed the icing to make a pretty pink! I also found some heart sprinkles in my baking cabinet and couldn't wait to use them!
I tried to switch up how I decorated them, but I only did some fun designs on the Be Mine cookies, as there were far less of them! I made this into a team effort and shared the decorating with my Mom, just to save some time!
The one thing I love about decorating cookies, is that you don't have to be creative to make a beautiful cookie! I don't know about you, but I have made myself very hungry while posting all of these delicious photos! Now that I have brought you through the prepping, baking and decorating, it is now time for me to share the recipe! I hope you try these and use any cookie cutters to make any design you would like! If you do make these cookies, tag me, I would love to see them!
Ingredients:
6 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp nutmeg
2 cups sugar
3 eggs
3 tbsp milk
1 cup margarine
Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit
Mix 5 cups of flower with the baking powder, salt and nutmeg.
Set aside.
Cream shortening and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add eggs and milk, then stir well.
Stir in dry ingredients.
Use remaining flour for rolling out the dough.
Roll out dough to 1/2 in thick
Bake on uncreased baking sheet for 8-10 minutes.
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