Valentine’s Day treats
Valentine’s day is next week!
Make some fun Valentine’s treats to make the day even sweeter!
Cut-out heart cupcakes (recipe here)
Neapolitan Heart Cookies (recipe here)
Pies on a stick (recipe here)
Ice cream Cupcake Sandwiches (recipe here)
Game of Thrones Heart Cupcakes (recipe here)
Not your typical Valentine’s heart but still deelish, I promise!
Strawberry Lilikoi Jell-o Hearts
I adore heart shapes, they make food more fun!
Pretty red Jell-o hearts make great Valentines but when they are Strawberry-Lilikoi, they taste even better!
ingredients:
1 small box (3 oz) strawberry Jell-o
1 packet Knox gelatin
1 cup boiling water
1 cup Strawberry-Lilikoi Hawaiian Sun juice
In a small bowl combine the Strawberry Jell-o, Knox gelatin packet, boiling water and Strawberry-Lilikoi juice. Stir to combine until the gelatin has dissolved.
Pour into an 8×8 glass dish and refrigerate until firm.
Using a small heart cutter, cut out Jell-o pieces and serve.
Valentine’s Day
I love hearts.
Cut-out Heart Cupcakes (recipe, here)
Mini Meat Hand-Pies (recipe, here)
Heart Flower Cupcakes (recipe, hereHan)
Kakimochi Cookies (recipe, here)
Ninja Chocolate Cookies
I got tons of email about these ninja cookie cutters when they came out, and for Christmas a good friend of mine actually bought them for me! With the stipulation that I make her some cookies. Hm…was this a gift for her or for me?
Just like with the Yoda cookies and the Hello Kitty Oreos, I am trying to make cookies dyed with natural ingredients that taste good without having to actually frost them to get color. I love frosted cookies, don’t get me wrong – but they are temperamental and take a lot of time. And lately I’m Lay-Z. Like Jay-Z but with more naps.
Anyway they are truly adorable and I made them for Valentine’s Day. They go perfect with the release of my new line of kawaii Ninja cards. How convenient!
ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup Valrhona cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
1 egg
white frosting
large heart quinns
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prep baking sheets with parchment or silpats.
In a bowl, whisk the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside.
In the bowl of an electric mixer cream the butter and sugar. Add the egg until combined.
Slowly add the flour mixture, careful it will fly everywhere – until incorporated. Once the dough starts to pull away from the sides you know you’re done!
Put the dough in the fridge for 10-15 minutes so that it’s easier to roll out.
Roll out the dough to about 1/4″ thick. Use your cutter to cut out the shapes and transfer onto the silpat lined baking sheet.
Bake for approx 9 minutes, depending on your oven – then place on a wire rack to cool.
Using a white frosting, pipe the open mask area for the face. Then add chocolate sprinkles for the eyes. I also put large heart quinns for Valentine’s Day and just because nothing is funnier to me than super happy kawaii ninjas.
They turned out cute AND tasty. Have you ever seen a more adorably dangerous cookie?
Valentine’s treats
I love Valentine’s Day because I love pink and I love hearts – it’s also a perfect time for sweets. This year I made some old favorites with a twist:
I made my Neapolitan cookies but used TEENY cutters and cut out little hearts. They look so good in the pan but unfortunately they spread like crazy…
They are still cute but it makes me want to use a miniscule cutter next time to see how small I can really get these things.
I also made up some M & M cookies but used the ‘Valentine’s mix’ which means pink, red and white. Cute idea but the M & M’s don’t show up that well. Doesn’t matter, they were still delicious.
Then I made mixed boxes of red velvet cupcakes and chocolate cupcakes. I just love how the white and brown look together with the little hearts.
Who knows if people appreciate all this work, but I had fun making all of it. Now what holiday is up next…?
Neapolitan cookies recipe, here.
M&M cookies recipe, here.
Chocolate Mascarpone cupcakes recipe, here.
Valentine’s cut out cookies
I love rolling out dough and cutting out cookies. It’s theraputic. I also like to make them ‘pop’ instead of just being flat, I like to add a little dimension.
Take a basic sugar cookie recipe. Roll out your dough and cut shapes. I happen to love this heart within a heart I found years ago. I get two cookies out of it! I have hearts of all different shapes, which makes it easy for layering.
The Kid specifically said, “Don’t take my picture.” Ok, fine.
Once baked and cooled, make a royal icing recipe. I like to tint mine two different colors, in this case, pink and I left the white as is. I have a bowl of red sugar and a bowl of pink sugar. You get variation of color with the sugar+frosting combo.
I assemble each cookie individually rather than in an assembly line. I do the big one first, then the small in a contrasting color, that way I can press the smaller cookie right in immediately, before the icing sets. Then it’s ‘glued’ in place.
I happened to see these cute boxes at Target, with a little ‘window’ in the top. Perfect to peek in on the cookies. I hope my Valentine’s recipients like them!
