Valentine's White Chocolate Hearts

Ok, I know I am not the only one who saw this and Pinned it.  The original recipe can be found at Number 2 Pencil.  I mean, how cute are they????

Anyways, while working on them, I kept thinking there is no way these are going to come out like the picture and just kept working away.  When I turned them out, my suspicions were correct.  This morning, I went back and looked closely at the picture on the blog and there were a few that well, just seems a little perfect like they were made in a different order.  I may be incorrect in my thinking, I know everyone wants their food to look perfect.  Mine certainly aren't but I am sure it won't matter to much, Miss V thought they were awesome!

Close ups

Valentine Cut out Cookies 2014

Yesterday I made some cute cookies for Alpha which is on Valentine's Day.  I don't like to really celebrate Valentine's Day.  I know it is just me, but telling someone once a year that you love them because the calendar says you should, just doesn't work for me.  I do like to make cutesy little treats though.

For the Cookies

6 cups flour
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 cups unsalted butter - room temp
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
2 eggs - room temp
4 Tbsp milk
3 tsp vanilla

Sprinkles, sugars, and whatever decorations that you like.  I have a sprinkles addiction...

Combine flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

Cream sugar and butter, then add eggs milk and vanilla.

Slowly add the flour mixture and beat until combined.

Roll out on waxed paper about 1/4 inch thick and then put into the fridge for 20 to 30 minutes.  While chilling preheat oven to 350.  After chilling, cut out shapes and place them on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

I can not stress this enough, keep everything; pans, dough, cookie cutters cold.  This makes it so much easier.  Between batches I would chill the pans in the fridge and the cookie cutters in the freezer.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.  You do not want them to brown.  I did find that 10 minutes were perfect for this size cookie.


I saw cute two toned cookies somewhere on Pinterest and thought I would try them out.  So I tinted some of the dough Fuchsia with Americolor Gels.  Doing this, you need to keep everything COLD or you will have a problem cutting out the two sizes and fitting in the opposite colored heart.

Valentine's Cookies with Marshmallow Fondant

Ok here are the beautiful cookies I just finished up for Miss V's Class Party.

For the Cookies
6 cups flour

4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 cups unsalted butter - room temp

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

2 eggs - room temp

4 Tbsp milk

3 tsp vanilla

Combine flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

Cream sugar and butter, then add eggs milk and vanilla.

Slowly add the flour mixture and beat until combined.

Roll out on waxed paper about 1/4 inch thick and then put into the fridge for 20 to 30 minutes.  While chilling preheat oven to 350.

After chilling, cut out shapes and place them on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

I can not stress this enough, keep everything; pans, dough, cookie cutters cold.  This makes it so much easier.  Between batches I would chill the pans in the fridge and the cookie cutters in the freezer.

Bake for 10-12 minutes.  You do not want them to brown.  I did find that 10 minutes were perfect for this size cookie.

See the sheen on them, this was taken about 8 minutes of bake time.  These are NOT done.  Make sure to watch them and when the sheen is gone they are done.

 When one batch came out of the oven, I put them on the table and immediately placed a fondant heart on each cookie.  When that is done, go back and press GENTLY on the fondant.  It should have warmed up nicely and it when cooled it will be adhered to the cookie.

Again I made a batch of Marshmallow Fondant.  This time I flavored them with banana extract and tinted them different shades of pink.

Aren't they pretty???

Valentine's Treats

Miss V and I looked for Valentine Treats for her friends on Pinterest.  Well the first one she picked out was You Rock with small packs of Pop Rocks.  I couldn't find them anywhere!

So her next choice was this one.  I picked up a huge bag of Starburst candy and downloaded the printable from BHG.com.  Well I printed out the bag topper and Miss V went to write her name in the box.  Well she couldn't fit it and was upset.

Me being the crafty/techie mom that I am, just recreated the label in PaintShop and wrote her name in a pretty font.

The bags I found at Hobby Lobby and I think they are 3x4 inch.

Pink and White Swirl Bread

Today I was thinking that I needed to make some sort of cute bread for Miss V's Valentine's Day lunch.  I have been using cookie cutters and making heart sandwiches and I remembered someone making colored bread.

So I made two pounds of white bread dough.  I figured that I would just split the dough in half and tint just one half.  Well I did and it was HARD!  I ended up pulling out my Kitchen Aid mixer with the dough hook to mix in the pink gel.  It worked much better.  Next time I will do what my friend did and just add the color with the water and make two batches of dough.

So here is what it looks like:

I also split the dough into two pans.  I think next time I will just use one loaf pan and make a much taller loaf.  These will have to be itty bitty sandwiches. 

Cute huh???

I enjoy reading any and all comments! Feel free to ask any questions you have, about this recipe. If you have tried this recipe, please let me know how you liked it or if you would change it in any way.

Home Made Blueberry Pop Tarts

I found this recipe on Cake Spy. Makes 6-8 tarts, maybe even more, depending on size; adapted from wonderful, wonderful Culinary Concoctions by Peabody

For the crust
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, softened and cut into cubes
3 tablespoons cold water
For the filling

Jam, about 1 heaping teaspoonful per pastry (your choice of flavor; I used blueberry)

For the icing

1 cup confectioners' sugar, sifted
milk, to thin

Preheat oven to 450°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper; set to the side.

Combine flour and salt in a large bowl. Add butter and blend with a fork, pastry cutter, or your impeccably clean hands. Blend until the mixture is fairly coarse. Add the water, bit by bit, gently mixing the dough after each addition, until the dough is cohesive enough to form a ball. (I used my food processor)
Place dough on a lightly floured surface and roll into a rectangle, about 1/8 inch thick. Cut out rectangles approximately the size of index cards (3x5 inches), or smaller if you prefer a more modest portion (I didn't). Make sure you have an even number of cutouts. I think that mine might have been a little thicker than 1/8 an inch, but I ended up with 12 rectangles (for 6 pastries).

On half of the rectangles, place a small spoonful of the jam of your choice in the center. You don't want it to be too thick or the top crust will mound on top of it.

Place the remaining rectangles of dough on top of the ones with jam. Crimp all four edges by hand or with a fork to ensure that your filling won't ooze out. I also poked the top of each with a fork, to vent them.

Place the tarts on your prepared baking sheet, and bake for 7 to 8 minutes, or until light golden on the edges. Remove from the oven and let them cool completely.

While the tarts cool, prepare your icing; make sure it is fairly thin but not so thin that it will just drip off. Once the pop tarts are cool, drizzle it on top. Garnish with sprinkles.

As you can tell Victoria wanted heart shaped pop tarts.

All rolled and cut out.

Covered with the top crust, crimped and poked holes for a vent.

Added some blueberry preserves.


Baked and cooling.
All done!
  Mmmm look at all that blueberry goodness...



I made these back in February and posted it in Miss V's blog.  I copied it here and took out the pictures of Miss V, for her privacy.