It's been a long time coming . . .

. . . slightly over a year to be more precise.  To what do I attribute such a long, silent absence?  Truthfully, to choosing to live my life instead of thinking what I'll write about it, or what I should have photographed and didn't.  I don't mean that to sound like I don't enjoy the blog, but I found that after I went back to work, I could get a little stressed out about it.  So I came to the conclusion if I had something for show and tell, I'd bring it.  If not, I wasn't going to allow myself to lose any sleep over it. 

I Heart Cookies

Valentine’s Day can bring out the romantic sap in many of us.  Others, however, will often rant on about commercialization and another day to make corporate America more money.  I’m going to go the romantic sap route.  Whether or not I go overboard with it, I will leave to others to judge.  I can take it.

red hearts for the romantic saps

My first V-Day project was cookies.  Most of these will be boxed up and sent off to my dad tomorrow. 

Yesterday I made my favorite butter cookies from my Grandma’s recipe, using large and small heart-shaped cookies cutters.  The large hearts were brushed with honey and covered with cut outs of vanilla-flavored red fondant mixed with candy clay.  I used a Wilton imprint mat for the vines and flowers. 



it didn't take long to give up
this exercise in futility



The original idea was to pipe white confectionery coating in the imprints, but it was a little too chilly in our kitchen this morning and the coating kept solidifying in my piping bag.  I forfeited that battle. 

 

The smaller cookies were drizzled with honey and covered in Pettinice chocolate fondant.  I was really surprised when I opened the package.  This fondant was so dark it almost looked black - which was okay because I had planned on adding black gel color to it.

In both cases, but sure the fondant cut outs are where you want them before letting go.  Once they touch the sticky honey, they aren't easily repositioned.  For that reason, I usually cut a couple of extras for when I have to scrape off one I've completely skewed.



black hearts for the "others" or for romantic saps who also
happen to be die-hard Joan Jett fans (such as myself)



Today I made caramel filled molasses cookies.  This is the recipe that makes the stickiest cookie dough ever that needs to be piped.  I thought this a good opportunity to use a Wilton heart piping tip I had purchased years ago.  Not so much.  I've not used it for icing yet, but I hope it works better for icing than it did for the cookie dough.  I gave up and went back to my Ateco large round tip.  Since I still wanted hearts, I matched the cookies up in pairs and cut out tiny hearts in the middle of the tops before filling them with caramel filling. 

plan b

Tug and I have things to get done this weekend, so I’m not sure if any more baking will occur until next week.  For Tug – who could care less about cookies and sweets, but nearly swoons over bread – I’m going to revisit the focaccia recipe, but try baking it in a heart-shaped pan.  And maybe make a Caesar salad . . . with heart-shaped croutons.



I used vanilla extract this time instead of almond, but I prefer the almond on purely sentimental grounds.