Rose Valentine Cookies

Each time I decorate cookies, my skills improve and  I get faster and more consistent.

Yes, it's no secret that good old fashioned practice is the way to upgrade your cookie decorating and these wet on wet rose Valentine cookies prove that point. The technique isn't hard, you just pipe a blob of wet icing onto wet icing and swirl it around with a toothpick or scribe tool. But, it does take some experience and finessing to make a rose that looks sort of realistic.

What I really love is that after lots of practice, I'm not only better at making wet on wet roses but I'm faster, which is why I even considered adding them to cookies for my upcoming fundraising sale.

Here's a sneak peak:

These mini rose cookies will be for sale in sets of two.

The mini rose cookies also look cute when stuck on top of a larger base cookie.

I used ivory, pink and a bit of moss green icing for these.

Here's a closeup of some mini roses. I used the same icing for the leaves to add groups of tiny dots.

Valentine Treat Sale!

This year's Valentine's Treat Sale to benefit Food Ministries at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral is right around the corner.

It will be held on Sunday, Feb. 14,  from 9 a.m. to noon at the Cathedral in Kempton Hall. Come early for the best selection because we do sell out.

I'm spending most of today planning this year's treats and I promise they will be beautiful, delicious and the perfect sweet gift for those you love.

I hope to see you there and in the meantime, here's a little sample of the treats from previous sales.

Red Velvet Cookies

Packages of Red Velvet Cookies. These sold quickly at a recent sale to benefit Hunger Ministries at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral. A cute way to package them is to place the cookies in cupcake papers and slide them inside self-sealing cellophane bags. I used paper punches to make the homemade tags.

These Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies are sure to please all your sweeties this Valentine's Day and there's still plenty of time to make them.

The cookie is a twist on my favorite tried and true recipe for Chocolate Espresso Sandwich Cookies that's from Julie Richardson of Baker & Spice. I just swapped red food coloring for the espresso in the dough, cut heart shapes, and after baking filled them with cream cheese icing. They are easy to make and so delicious.  Here's the recipe:

Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies
(makes about 4 dozen 2-inch sandwiches)

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups unsalted butter
1 tablespoon vanilla
2 eggs
1 1/3 cups Dutch process Cocoa, sifted
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 oz red food coloring
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

Cream together the butter and sugar on medium-high speed for 5 minutes or until light, scraping down the bowl occasionally as needed.

Add the vanilla and the eggs, one at a time, blending lightly between additions. Add the red food coloring, make sure to mix this in on low so that there's no splattering!

Add the cocoa on low speed until combined.

Blend the flour, and salt and add to the butter mixture until just combined.Wrap the dough and let it chill for at least 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

After chilling, the dough might need to warm at room temperature for a bit so that it can be easily rolled.

Roll the dough on a lightly floured work area to about 1/4 inch thick. Cut the dough into desired shapes, I like to use a 1.5-inch heart cutter and place on parchment lined cookie sheets. Bake for about 6 minutes or until the cookies are no longer shiny but still soft in the middle.

Transfer the cookies to a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely before filling them with the cream cheese filling.

Adding the cream cheese filling to the cookies.

Cream Cheese Filling

2/3 cup powdered sugar

8 oz. (1 package) cream cheese 

1/4 cup softened butter

1 teaspoons vanilla

Whip cream cheese and butter thoroughly. Add the vanilla then the powdered sugar, a little at a time and whip until smooth.

Valentine Treat Preview

I just finished packaging my last batch of cookies for tomorrow's Valentine Sweet Sale at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and am happy to say everything is looking great and I'm anxious to start selling and raising funds for Hunger Ministries. 

Here are a few pictures from a busy week preparing for the sale and a few previews of what will be for sale tomorrow from 9 a.m. to noon in Kempton Hall at the church (147 NW 19th Ave, Portland Oregon). I hope to see you there!

I dedicated Thursday and Friday to cookie baking and decorating. These brushed embroidery cookies were the first design I tackled.

I also had to include a heart design. I used a heart cookie cutter to make an impression in the cookies before baking. The first step in decorating these was to paint the heart with pink royal icing.

These cookies demonstrate the three steps to decorating the heart cookies.

Finished cookies that just need to dry before packaging.

Of course I also had to make some French Macarons. I thought cherry would be a good choice for Valentine's Day.

I filled the macarons with a Morello cherry buttercream.

I also made some salted caramel macarons because they are always well received and I thought they would look nice packaged alongside the  cherry macarons.

The final touch in packaging the macarons was a homemade tag and some butcher's twine.

Saturday morning it was truffle packaging time. Here I am filling truffle boxes with Dave who with his wife Cheryl made all of the truffles. Our friends Cindy and Terri also came by to help with the packaging.

Each five-piece box contains three dark and two milk chocolate truffles.

The final touch to the truffle boxes was adding a pretty bow and a paper heart. Terri and Cindy tied all of the ribbons and did a wonderful job. I love the way the boxes turned out and I have my friends to thank. If the bow tying was all up to me, I'd still be struggling — it's definitely not my talent.  But like Terri said today, "many hands make light work." It was a team effort and I'm grateful.

Valentine Sweet Sale

These mini Valentine cookies will be for sale!

It's time again for the Valentine Sweet Sale to benefit Trinity Episcopal Cathedral's Food Ministries which supports The Wednesday Community Meal. The annual sale is one of Food Ministries' largest fundraisers but last year's sale sadly had to be cancelled because of icy winter weather. We're hoping to make up for it this year and sell out.

I've been busy making cookies and my friends and cohorts Cheryl and Dave Richardson have been busy making Belgian chocolate truffles. All of the sweets will be beautifully packaged and ready to give to your loved ones.

Here are the details:

Valentine Sweet Sale to Benefit Food Ministries
Sunday February 8, 9 a.m. to noon in Kempton Hall at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral (147 NW 19th Avenue, Portland, Oregon). Buy Belgian chocolate truffles and cookies for all your loved ones and at the same time support Trinity’s Food Ministries. The sweets are handmade by chocolatiers and bakers from The Wednesday Community Meal and will be beautifully packaged and ready to give.

Radiant Orchid Ombre Hearts

In honor of Pantone's 2014 color of the year,  Radiant Orchid, I made these simple and sweet ombre hearts.

These cookies can be made quickly and are perfect for Valentine's Day. Tones of Radiant Orchid are pretty, elegant and a nice change from the more traditional Valentine colors of pink and red.

To get the colors I wanted, I divided an equal amount of icing into four bowls and used a combination of AmeriColor Electric Pink and Electric Purple colorings.

My icing divided and ready for coloring.

In the first bowl I put one drop of each color, in the second, I put two drops of each color and so on, ending with four drops of each color in the fourth bowl. This is the easiest way I know to get even gradations of color.

Before decorating the cookies, I thinned the icings with water to flood consistency.

To decorate the cookies, I thinned the icings to flood consistency and used a #2 tip to outline and fill. 

These cookies come together very fast. I like to outline and fill three or four cookies at a time and use a skewer to help evenly distribute the icing.

Be sure to let the cookies dry before serving or packaging. This takes anywhere from 4 to 8 hours depending on humidity.

Double-Decker Valentine Cookie

Just two colors of royal icing and a black food safe writing pen are all that are needed to make these neat Double-Decker Valentine Cookies.

Not all food writing pens are created equally. I have a cheaper set that I bought at a craft store and a more expensive AmeriColor set and the latter is far superior. The AmeriColor  pens write darker and more evenly than the less expensive pens that go on lighter and can look translucent.

My favorite set of food writing pens. They can be found online at Amazon and in specialty decorating shops. You can also buy the black pens separately.

To make these cookies all you have to do cut an even number of large cookies and mini hearts. Outline and fill the large cookies with white royal icing and outline and fill the hearts with red royal icing.

Here's how to add the writing and stack the cookies.

The royal icing on your cookie needs to be completely dry before adding the writing.

Write the word "love" in rows across the cookie. Start and stop at different points in the word so it looks like a continuous loop.

Let the ink dry for at least 30 minutes before adhering a mini heart to the top of the cookie using royal icing as glue. Let the cookies dry completely before packaging.

Hug And Kiss Cookies

You don't need any fancy cookie cutters to make these cute Hug and Kiss cookies for Valentine's Day.

Any small cookie cutter will do. I used a scalloped 1-inch rectangle cutter but a square or round cutter would just as well. 

I used three colors of royal icing to make them:

Medium pink for the base coat.
Red for the "X's" and "O's".
And, hot pink for the dot border.

The medium pink and red icings were flood consistency and the hot pink icing was piping consistency.  Because the cookies are small, I recommend using a #1 pastry tip for all of the icings. The small sized tip gives you better control for decorating a small cookie.

I didn't let the base coat dry before piping the "X's" and "O's" because I wanted the red icing to settle into the pink and be flat on the cookie.

Experiment with other color combinations. The brighter the better!

Scalloped Heart Cookies

Initially I envisioned a fancy design for these heart sugar cookies but once I had applied the hot pink scalloped edge and creamy light pink base, I just couldn't bring myself to embellish them.

The simple design was just too sweet.

These cookies are perfect for Valentine's Day and a good choice for beginning cookie decorators.

All you need are two contrasting colors - a piping consistency icing for the border and a flood consistency icing for the base.

Here's how to make them:

Bake a batch of heart sugar cookies.

Outline the cookie with a piping consistency icing using a #1 pastry tip.

Fill with a flood consistency icing using a #2 pastry tip. Use a skewer to move the icing to the edges.