VD Sugar Cookies

It's Valentine's Day today so over the weekend, I made treats for some of my friends. Not really a fan of V-Day myself, so I turned it into something dirty. My motto every year is, "Happy VD! Don't catch any!" So this year, I made cookies to go with it. :) These are sugar cookies adapted from here. The icing recipe I used was adapted from here. You will find my modifications below. I've also scaled both down by half since I wasn't baking for the whole village. I didn't "flood" all my cookies with icing so there were plenty left even with the scaled down proportion.

A while back, a friend had posted the above picture on FB which triggered an instant irking for me to take on the challenge. I thought it was just genius and hilarious! This was also an opportunity for me to mess with icing for the first time. Let's just say it was very time consuming, but it was semi therapeutic and fun.

For the Sugar Cookie:

Ingredients:

• 1-½ stick of unsalted butter
• 1 cup Sugar
• 2 large Eggs
• 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
• 1 teaspoons Almond Extract
• 2 cups All-purpose Flour
• 1/2 teaspoon Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder

Directions:
In a mixer, with paddle attachment, beat butter and sugar until well combined, about 2 minutes.
Add in eggs, one at a time until combined between additions.
Add in vanilla and almond extract; mix until combined.

In a separate bowl, sift together flour, salt, and baking powder. Slowly (about a 1/2 cup at a time) add flour to butter mixture and mix until combine.

Put dough in some Saran wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour or overnight. When you are ready to bake, heat oven to 350 degrees. Roll dough out, cut out cookies, and bake for 6-8 minutes.

Icing Recipe:
For the icing, I used meringue powder since I am cautious about messing with raw food i.e. uncooked egg whites. The site says to add extracts to it and it's not kidding when it says it stinks. hahaa I added both vanilla and almond extract to it so it can be consistent with the cookies.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups confectioners' (powdered or icing) sugar
• 1.5 tablespoons (15 grams) meringue powder
• 1 teaspoon extract (vanilla, lemon, almond or a combo)
• 1/4 cup warm water
• Food color

What You Do:

In the bowl of your electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the confectioners' sugar and meringue powder until combined. Add the water and extracts and beat on medium to high speed until very glossy and stiff peaks form (5 to 7 minutes). If necessary, to get the right consistency, add more powdered sugar or water. To cover or 'flood' the entire surface of the cookie with icing, the proper consistency is when you lift the beater, the ribbon of icing that falls back into the bowl remains on the surface of the icing for a few seconds before disappearing.

The icing needs to be used immediately or transferred to an airtight container as royal icing hardens when exposed to air. Cover with plastic wrap when not in use.

I divided the batch up into little bowls and mixed in the colors. I used Wilton's Icing Color paste which can be bought at Michael's or JoAnn's with a coupon for cheap! I used a toothpick to color and mix, but next time, I think popsicle sticks might be more ideal... especially the mixing part. You don't want to dip used toothpicks into the color and icing, so a knife works too and then just clean it between colors and transfers.

After the colors are mixed in, transfer them to piping bags fitted with no more than a #2 pipe tip (if you plan to write/draw).

Decorate away…

 

Happy VD! Don’t catch any…

Pigs in a Blanket

In the spirit of Superbowl Sunday, I've decided to make Pigs in a Blanket! Who am I kidding... I can care less about football. I tried making this a week ago, but the biscuit recipe I found didn't measure up. I did more searching and came across this one on All Recipes. I gave it a try today and added my own flare to it and boy did it pay off. This is definitely a keeper.

What you need:

• 1 (.25 ounce) package active dry yeast
• 1/4 cup and 2 tablespoons warm water (110 degrees F/45 degrees C)
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt (I only used 1/4 of salt and 1/2 tsp seasoning salt *See picture)
• 1 eggs
• 1/4 cup butter
• 1 tablespoon of finely chopped Rosemary, Thyme, and garlic (mix it well--the tbs is a combo of all three, not 1 tbs each)
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• Softened butter for spreading (set aside, not used for mix)
• Your favorite shredded Cheese (I recommend Pepper Jack to give it a more prominent taste)
• Smokie Sausage links (I recommend Aidells' *see picture)
• An egg and tablespoon of milk (for brushing)

What you do:

1. In a small bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water.
2. With a paddle attachment on your Kitchen Aid mixer, beat the butter until.
   
3. Stir in sugar, salt, eggs, shortening, and add flour little by little until well combined. Beat until smooth. Scrape dough from side of bowl. (Switch to hook attachment). Knead dough, then cover it and let rise in a warm place until double (about 1-1/2 hours).
4. Punch down dough. Extract a small ball of dough and roll it out in a long oval. Cut into triangles. Spread/glisten softened butter on it. Place a sausage and cheese along the wide end and roll up the wedges starting with the wide end. Place rolls with point under on a greased baking sheet. Cover and let rise until double (about 1 hour). (Since these are so small, I didn't see any difference whether you wait or not. I just didn't bake them until all was done and placed on baking sheet lined with parchment paper.) You can also do a "pillow" format but rolling and pinching dough surrounding sausage and totally enclose it.
   
5. Brushed the top of the finished ones with the egg and milk mixture. It makes it shiny and glossy once it's out of the oven.
6. Bake at 400 degrees F (205 degrees C) for 12-15 minute or until golden brown. (Depending on your oven, use a lower temperature and less time if it starts to burn the bottom before the top turns golden).
7. Enjoy!
   

Seasoning salt I used

The sausages- These were from Costco.