Halloween is, of course, the holiday of holidays to me, so most other holidays just don’t receive my attention quite as much. Valentine’s Day, for one, has always been very blah. It was kind of fun when my husband and I started dating, but after being married for over a decade, it loses its punch. I mean, we don’t need a random day in February to say we love each other. It’s more of a day we use as an excuse to eat steak (we use that excuse for a lot of days – President’s Day, our anniversary, doctor’s visits, Sundays, etc.) and have a special dessert.

Since we made the smart decision to get an Amazon fire stick for all of our TVs, I also have gotten crazy into watching those addictive YouTube videos on cake and cookie decorating. They’re big montages of talented people making beautiful art that you can eat, and they always get me in the mood to make…

SUGAR COOKIES!

And I say “make” as in my husband makes the dough, and I just do the part of rolling them out, cutting them into shapes, and icing them. Typing that out makes it seem like I have the harder job, but I am not a fan of actually cooking/baking things. I’ll do the pretty part, but the first step just ain’t my cup of tea.

For those of you that don’t already have a favorite sugar cookie recipe, let me recommend this one from allrecipes.com. We’ve used other sugar cookie recipes before, but this one rolls out and cuts just right. Make sure you follow the instructions for chilling the dough. It really keeps the dough firm so it cuts clean and doesn’t stick to your roller or cookie cutters.

One change I would make to the recipe concerns flouring the surface. I don’t like the taste of unmixed flour on my baked cookie, so I use powdered sugar instead. I’ve found it works just as well, and it doesn’t leave that chalky flavor on your finished cookie.

For this batch of cookies, I used this heart-shaped set of Wilton cookie cutters. I really prefer the metal cookie cutters like this as opposed to the plastic variety. The metal really cuts cleanly and seems to stick less than the plastic. Also, NEVER use those weird cookie cutters that stamp cookies with patterns – or just any kind that aren’t open on top – unless your dough is extremely chilled. It is a headache if your dough is the slightest bit sticky.

Anyway, after I had them all cut out and baked, it was time for the fun part. DECORATING! I use this sugar cookie icing recipe for all my sugar cookies, but feel free to use any that you love. Just make sure it’s the kind that will harden.

I used both Wilton piping bags and ziplock food bags (because I ran out of piping bags) for each color of icing. I also used round Wilton decorating tips to pipe the icing onto the cookie, but you can use any tips you have or just cut a small hole in the corner of the bag you use. You can also just spoon the icing onto the cookie, but it’s harder to achieve a good line that way.

Valentine’s Day is a cutesy holiday, and my soul starts to die if I do cutesy things too long. I made a few cute candy heart cookies, some pretty ones with swirls, and some with other cute patterns…and then I did my thang.

The only cookie cutters I had for Valentine’s Day were hearts, so bloody hearts were a no-brainer. But I didn’t want to be one note, so I switched them up a little.

I started with these fully-iced bloody hearts. I used a small round icing tip to pipe a red sugar cookie icing outline in an appropriate drippy shape and then flooded it with the same color. Then, I filled in the bottom of the cookie with pink, first using the round icing tip to outline the remainder of the heart and then flooding it with the same color.

I did these next, only doing the first step with the drips and then adding an extra blood drop.

These were my favorite. I iced the cookie with white icing, again using a small round tip to outline my cookie and then flood with the same color. Then, I mixed red food gel with a small bit of almond extract and used a food paintbrush and toothpick to spatter the colored extract on the cookie. To get the best effect, I first soaked my brush and let it drip a little on the cookie before using the toothpick to fan the bristles and create that cool spatter look. I was very happy with the effect. There might have been some maniacal laughter involved. I was that pleased.

So that’s how I celebrated Valentine’s in my own way. I think they turned out really well. Maybe next year I can branch out with some different types of cookie cutters. Zombie cupids? Anatomical hearts?

Yeah. That sounds real nice.

Let me now what you think in the comments!