It's not necessary to reinvent the wheel when it comes to making new sugar cookies. For my first round of Valentine's Day sugar cookies this year, I went with the easiest technique imaginable. Dots! Piping royal icing dots is not the hardest thing for anyone of any skill. What's more, if you want to make quick work of your Valentine's Day cookies don't flood them. Bake pristine sugar cookies in a range of heart shapes, and then quickly ice them with dots. Note: every cookie was decorated with a #2 piping tip.
This pink milk glass platter shows the the variety of shapes and designs I am referring to.
Here's a sampling of the cookie cutters I ended up using for this project.
If you don't own a set of these French de Buyer heart cookie cutters, I highly recommend them. I like the range of sizes they come in, the fact that they're deep and made of strong plastic. Easy to maintain, the cutters get used every single year.
The large 5" hearts on this cake stand are piped with four different shades of royal icing. Super Red, electric pink, burgundy (use this sparingly) and soft pink are the colors I used. The icing itself is not too stiff and not too runny. Make sure that it's a good 20 second royal icing so that the dots hold their shape.
Begin on the outside of the cookie, at the bottom tip of the heart. Pipe evenly-spaced dots in one color around the perimeter of the cookie. Using another color pipe evenly-spaced dots in alternating formation from the first set. Continue doing this with the other colors until you've piped 4 inner hearts.
Optional, but highly recommended: Using a soft, very fine painting brush, lightly dust each cookie with edible glitter in cosmic white. It gives the cookies extra sparkle!
This whimsical sampling shows you what you can do without having to flood the cookies. Simple squiggles in contrasting colors work beautifully. Another design is piping a bead of icing around the entire cookie, and then piping dots of either the same color or of alternating colors, on the inside of the hearts. I love these so much.
Done! Pile them high on cake stands or arrange them in clear cellophane bags for gift giving. You can also buy clear-top chocolate boxes (in heart shapes of course) to create a sampling box for your honey.
Charming, sweet, easy to make, and very tasty. Cookies like this make gift giving for Valentine's Day super easy. I like them for teachers, to give to a secret admirer, to give to a coworker or to take to staff at work. Don't forget your mom, your aunt, a cousin or that special someone this Valentine's.
What a sweet color pallate! I love these on the shell pink <3
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