Belated Baking for Valentines!

Katie and I were supposed to make Valentine cookies last weekend to take to her friends. But with the stomach bug going around our and runny noses, we decided not to. (I am sure her friends and their parents are glad :) So last night, after Owen went down, we dug into cookies making. I have been on the search for another good recipe (our tried and true Sour Cream cookies have dairy in them :( .

But thanks to this link on my friend, Allison's blog, we found one. Vanilla Almond Sugar Cookies...Yippeeeeee! If you need some tips for cookies, this blog-Bake at 350 is awesome.

Not to mention that Allison makes some killer cookies too. :) *Allison you have no idea how much your posting of cookies has encouraged me to dive into this. It is something I have always wanted to try. Thanks for unknowingly encouraging me.

We ended up rolling out about 30 cookies-all relatively the same thickness. Perfect!

Yummmmmm. They were delicious! I tried the original recipe and only changed the flour from white to Spelt. Wonderful-a keeper!

The next day we did the 'celebrating' (aka decorating) as Katie says. I made some royal icing, minus the corn syrup (recipe here-from the same blog) and bought all the stuff for correctly piping the icing: bags, tips, meringue powder... I had a lot of fun outlining them and then Katie helped to fill them in and add the sprinkles. Most sprinklers were poured out in large piles. :) I learned a lot about how to decorate cookies-it took me almost all 30 cookies to get into a rhythm.

Owen LOVED them. Here he is showing me his empty mouth--therefore add more cookie!

Some final products...

before sprinkles...

Well done Katie! And if you are a friend of ours and don't get a cookie....don't worry, we will be making more of these in the days to come, to share!

And the one and only blunder. I think I got a bit too happy filling this cookie. It was probably when I diluted the icing to much and it was running all over the place! Ahhhh--but till edible!