Iced Sugar Cookies 2017…My Valentine Tradition Lives On

I can still remember the feeling of searching through a box of Valentine cards and spending hours deciding which card was right for each of my classmates.  And in my case that consisted of everyone in the whole school!

Sixty years ago I attended a one room country school in the heart of Amish country in rural Iowa where there were eight grades in that one room.  

 It wasn’t hard to share a card with everyone in the school since no grade had more than four students, and most had only two or three.  

I don’t remember having a big party on Valentine’s day, but I do remember wrapping a BIG cardboard box in white paper, then decorating it with bright red construction paper hearts cut to all sizes.  

We made a slit in the top of that “mail box” to hold all of the Valentines we each brought to share. Even the Amish children shared handmade Valentines with everyone. I remember how much fun we all had, reading the messages inside each card we received, and trying to read between the lines to see who really “liked” who!  (I guess some traditions haven’t changed.) 

My love of Valentine’s Day kicked into even higher gear when I became “Meemaw/Grandma”.  Since we are far away from all of our grandchildren each February, I decided several years ago to bake special cookies each and every year – sweets for my sweeties! – and mail them up north to awaiting tummies.

About ten days before the holiday, I initiate a MASSIVE cookie baking and decorating project and time the shipment of these little baked beauties to arrive right before Valentine’s Day.  Today I’m sharing my timeline for mixing, baking, decorating, wrapping and shipping the tasty treasures.

DAY ONE: 

Mix up the dough and refrigerate overnight. 

This may sound like a wasted step, but it’s not!  In order to roll out cookie dough to your desired thickness without sticking, the dough must be VERY COLD.  So mix up the dough, wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate to allow it to cool completely.  

DAY TWO:

Thoroughly clean your countertop…Then roll out and bake those little treasures…

Tips:

• Bake cookies of the same size together on one cookie sheet. Don’t put big, fat hearts on the same sheet pan with itty bitty ones, or the little ones will burn while the big ones need more baking time.
• Let the cookie sheets cool between batches. Put the cookie dough cut outs onto the cold sheet pan, then into the hot oven.  If you put the cookie shaped dough on a hot pan, the cookies will lose their shapes before the oven can begin to bake them.  So keep those cookies looking pretty! 
• Use a flour-dusted bench scraper to loosen the cut out shapes from the counter top so you can easily place them on the baking sheet. 
• Also use your bench scraper to scrape the left over dough back up off the counter and into a ball, and throw it back in the refrigerator to let it cool again before rolling another batch.  The dough must be kept cold to keep it from sticking to the rolling pin or to the countertop.  And always dust your counter top with flour before rolling out another ball of cold dough.

Even though it’s the season of hearts and cupids, I always throw in some tiny snowmen. The grandkids love to search for them in the box, like a cookie version of “Where’s Waldo?”

DAY THREE:

Some call it frosting, others call it icing. Whatever you call it, let the decorating begin!

Tips:

• Butter knives make great icing spreaders!
• If you don’t have a pastry bag to make icing designs, fill up a heavy duty ziplock back with the icing, then simply cut the tiniest corner off to start writing, dotting, and swirling.

It’s a MESSY job…but this Old Meemaw is still up for the task…Every Year!

On the FIRST icing day I simply put on the base layer of icing on ALL of the cookies…and I let it harden overnight.

DAY FOUR:

The REAL decorating begins! 

It’s a Labor of LOVE…every single year!

DAY FIVE:

Shipping Day! I wrap each cookie separately in plastic wrap, then Peepaw packs the boxes to ensure no broken cookies cause broken hearts. (Peepaw is a PRO at packing and shipping since he was a UPS driver for thirty years!)

And when he’s finished packing that precious cargo? Peepaw heads off to the UPS Store a block away. (I TOLD you we live within walking distance of almost everything we need or want!)

Then, I patiently wait and wait until Valentine’s Day…every single year.

And NOTHING beats these annual photos. Nothing in the whole wide world.

And THIS year? I can’t wait for the NEW photos! 

Yes…another year has passed…and my Valentine baking tradition lives on. 

Priceless.

Valentine's Day Iced Sugar Cookies

2016-01-12 12:24:12

Feel free to cut all ingredients in half to make a smaller batch of cookies. (But why would you? They're DELICIOUS...and they WILL disappear!)

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Ingredients

1. COOKIE INGREDIENTS
2. 1 1/2 cups butter, softened
3. 2 cups sugar
4. 4 eggs
5. 2 tsp. vanilla
6. 5 cups white flour (plus more to dust the work surface)
7. 2 tsp. baking powder
8. 2 tsp salt
9. ICING INGREDIENTS
10. 1 cup powdered sugar, sifted to remove lumps
11. 2 tsp. milk
12. 2 tsp. corn syrup (HINT: Spray measuring spoon with cooking spray so syrup slides out!)
13. For this batch of cookies you will need at least 4 times this much icing, so make as many batches as you need. And you can add more corn syrup if icing is too thick to spread easily. I make a HUGE bowl and then divide it into smaller bowls to tint to the shades I need.

Instructions

1. Mix thoroughly the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Blend in the flour, baking powder and salt. Cover and chill at least one hour...but Meemaw says OVERNIGHT!
2. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Remove part of the dough from the refrigerator and place on floured surface. Roll about 1/8 in. thick. Cut into desired shapes and bake similar shapes together on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 6-8 minutes or until just beginning to brown. (Do NOT overbake!) Remove from the oven and allow to remain on the cookie sheet for a minute before removing to a wire rack to cool. Allow to completely cool before icing.

By Meemaw

Adapted from From the Betty Crocker Cookbook I received as a wedding gift almost 45 years ago!

Adapted from From the Betty Crocker Cookbook I received as a wedding gift almost 45 years ago!

Meemaw Eats https://www.meemaweats.com/