Happy Valentine's Day!

First let me say that I feel awful that I didn't keep up with blogging about all of the holiday cookies I had planned. I didn't make my goal of 25 different cookies, but I DID try a handful of new and old recipes, I just didn't blog about it. I still hope to try all of those recipes and blog about it all at some point. You know, in my spare time :-)

Ok, now on to Valentine's Day!!!! Last year, I had done my first fully iced cookies for Ryan's school party (the start of all of this, LOL!) which you can see here. This year, I needed to go much more simple. I have done cookies using corn syrup to attach sugar or other decorations before (I got the idea from the book Cookie Craft), with the first ones being these train cookies. I decided to do Ryan's favorite, chocolate chip, and I even bought pre-made dough! They are very simple!

See, very easy :-) I often go with another brand, but I was swayed by the red chips!

Originally, I was hoping to get them to be heart shaped. I was going to cutout the whole cookie with a cutter right after baking, but they would have been so much smaller. Besides, WHAT would I have done with all of those cookie scraps? Hmmm. Then I decided to try cutting out a tiny heart in the middle, but I wasn't thrilled with those results.

I finally decided to paint a heart with corn syrup (using a food only brush of course) and cover with Valentine nonpareils. I do one at a time because the corn syrup starts to dry quickly. Paint, cover with decoration, shake off excess. I kept saying that it would have been quicker and easier for me to mix up some red icing and pipe the hearts on, but I had already started so I just went with it! I use a clean, dry brush to remove any stray decorations and push some of them into place. Yes, on occasion I position individual nonpareils! I use a paper plate for holding the decorations because I can roll it up and pour right back into the container. Tonight wasn't the first time I've seen it, but I'm always entertained by how well nonpareils BOUNCE! Too funny. It's a good thing I don't get worked up about having sprinkles on the floor!

Here are a few other things I tried. I also did red sugar but didn't get a great picture of it. Oh, and I did a pale pink sugar which barely showed up, and stuck to the entire top of the cookie because I didn't let it cool enough :-) The nonpareils are less likely to stick in that case.

Here is this picture again because I forgot to mention how much I adore this plate. If anyone sees them anywhere, please let me know! I originally got this at Wegman's. Of course I didn't realize that the chip on the one edge was positioned so well in this shot!


I hope you have a great Valentine's Day! I'd love to see any cookies or treats that you have made!