Valentine's Day

Hello Everybody! Valentine’s Day will be here very soon! It’s always so fun for kids to exchange Valentines, especially if they are home-made or if they involve candy/sweets. Here are some ideas for the very best possible combination- homemade AND sweet!!

* Use my almond toffee recipe to make delicious chocolate-covered toffee (you can make it in a baking dish then break it into peices, or you can rub the inside of a plastic or metal cookie cutter with a bit of butter and use it as a heart-shaped mold): In a saucepan, heat 2 sticks of butter (cut up) with 1 1/2 cups of sugar, a Tablespoon of lite corn syrup, and 2 Tablespoons of water until the butter is melted. Then leave the heat on medium-low and let it cook without stirring until it is golden and the temperature is 300° F. Stir 1/2 cup of chopped almonds into the mixture carefully, and then pour a little into each buttered cookie cutter (you can also use shapes other than hearts) or into a buttered baking dish. Once they have cooled, remove them from the molds if you used molds, and spread melted chocolate chips on each side, sprinkling with crushed almonds if you want and waiting for each side to harden before flipping them over.

* Cover pretzel rods or smaller pretzel twists in melted chocolate. You can use milk chocolate or white chocolate, and drizzle the opposite color chocolate over the pretzel (which looks fancy and is very impressive!) Or you can use valentines sprinkles before the chocolate hardens. If you cover the whole pretzel twist in chocolate, it looks like a little heart- perfect for Valentine’s Day!

* Make traditional Valentine’s “love knot” cookies, which are shaped like the symbol for infinity- a sideways 8- because love goes on forever and are golden-colored (never tarnishes) because of the infinity-shaped gold pins worn on Valentine’s Day in the Middle Ages. The recipe is from a cookbook called “A Continual Feast” which includes recipes for holidays and saints’ days from all around the world http://www.amazon.com/Continual-Feast-Celebrate-Throughout-Christian/dp/0898703840. Preheat the oven to 375 °F. Beat 1 cup butter until soft, then add 1 cup sugar and blend until fluffy. Beat in 2 eggs, 1 egg yolk, 1/4 cup sour cream, a few drops of yellow food coloring (for the “gold”) and 1 teaspooon vanilla extract. Sift (or whisk) 2 1/2 cups of flour and then add it to the dough. Chill the dough for about 1/2 hour and remove it a little at a time (this will make it easier to handle). Roll it out in between hands into a rope- I prefer to make skinny ropes because they expand it the oven. Bake them for about 15 minutes. If you would like, you can add golden sprinkles on the tops, I made some with red sprinkles and they also turned out nicely. You can add a teaspoon of grated lemon rind to the dough if you like (it was in the original recipe) but I prefer it plain.

* Instead of- or in addition to- making regular sugar cookies to decorate for friends at Valentine’s Day, try this recipe for butterscotch cutout cookies from Virginia Pasley’s cookie book: Preheat the oven to 350° F. In a bowl, whisk together 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup white sugar. Cream 1/2 cup of butter with the sugars slowly, creaming well. Add 2 eggs, one by one. In a seperate bowl, whisk together 3 cups of flour with 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda. Add this to the original dough alternately with a teaspoon of vanilla which has been mixed with a Tablespoon of water. Chill for an hour, then roll out and cut with cookie cutters. Bake for 15 minutes. These cookies have a flavor which is definitely kid-friendly but different from sugar cookies, although the two look very similar. They can be decorated with sprinkles or icing.

Icing Recipes

Making your own icing can be so much fun! For more delicate cookies or cakes, let kids stir water (from a dropper if you want to be careful) into powdered sugar until it is as thick or thin as you want. This makes a great pourable icing  to drizzle over little tea cakes, etc.

For an icing that can be piped out of a ziplock bag (fill the baggie with icing and then snip off a corner with scissors) use this recipe from Wilton http://www.wilton.com/recipe/Buttercream-Icing and use food dye to make any color you want.