Valentine’s Day is a time to cherish our loved ones. To me, there is no better way to show you care than to have fun baking, decorating and sharing some delicious treats! Even though this day generally caters towards couples, it’s nice to make the holiday about showing some love to family and friends, too. That’s why I personally love these baking ideas- it’s such a fun get together or party idea. You don’t have to be a master baker or decorator to make these cookies and cakes look amazing and original. Plus, they are delicious.

Let's get real, not all of us have a romantic him or her, but we can definitely still enjoy this day. I decided to think of ways to make V-Day a fun experience for you and friends, family, and maybe that special someone. Some of my favorite memories from holidays, and Valentine’s Day in particular, are baking cute cookies with my family so that I could give them out at school the next day as a show-stopping gift. Everyone who I give these cookies to are guaranteed to say it looks like a professional made them, when in reality anyone can do these techniques- they are so insanely simple!

This, along with a lot of my fun holiday treats, tend to be semi-homemade; decorating tends to be the most time-consuming part for me and I like the baked good to stay somewhat simple. But if you have some recipes that you would love to make from scratch, the sky is your limit!

INGREDIENTS USED:

Sugar cookie mix or from scratch recipe here

Royal icing recipe here

Food coloring gel in your preferred colors

Vodka, or other clear alcohol (for painting the cookies)

Pound Cake mix

White chocolate ganache recipe here

Raspberry buttercream recipe here

Flowers for decoration

For the cakes:

I used a store bought pound cake mix to make the cakes because I wanted to bake them in sheets, but didn’t want to messy a lot of dishes by making it from scratch. I used a glass baking sheet so that I could spread out the cake batter and it would be easy to cut out little hearts and stack them together. After the allotted baking time, let cool for a few minutes and then flip them onto a cookie sheet and cut out your hearts.

I then made a simple raspberry buttercream to put in between the layers and frost the cake. Also, side-note for the buttercream: instead of using all powdered sugar you can substitute in some corn starch in order to thicken the mixture without continuing to add sweetness. Especially if you have really juicy raspberries and you want a thicker consistency for your frosting.

For these cakes, I used a little white chocolate ganache to crumb coat the cakes and make them sturdier and less crumbly. After I filled the middle with buttercream I stacked the cakes together, and spread on a thin layer of ganache over the cakes to fill in any holes and the excess space between the pieces of cake. It would work best if the ganache had more chocolate than whipping cream in order to make it sturdier for the crumb coat, or just put it in the fridge for about half an hour or so to set-up.

When frosting these cakes, I used a small cranked palette knife and tried not to get it looking perfect. I think they have a little more character with that home-made icing look. Just put some excess buttercream on the cakes and run your knife back and forth to create little waves in the buttercream until you’ve reached the look you’re happy with.

For the cookies:

I used a premade sugar cookie mix, added the needed ingredients, chilled it, rolled it out and then cut it to my desired shape! And of course if you would like to use from-scratch recipes please, go ahead- I have one listed in the ingredients section. Like I said before, this was a matter of convenience for me, and these recipes are so versatile you can mix and match steps to your preference. I used royal icing for the cookies, in order to give them a smooth, professional finish. To make it thinner and flood the cookies, I just added more water until I reached the easiest consistency for me to work with.

Decorating:

I made 3 separate colors of royal icing to help me decorate, and kept some of the white free from dye. I spread it out on my cookies and kept the consistency very thin so it would dry without any bumps or lumps. To add more decoration with royal icing, simply pipe on some dots of another color while the base layer is still wet. They will mold together and dry flat. If you want to make the little hearts, use the same technique and before they set, take a toothpick and run it down to dot to form a heart.

I decided to also leave some cookies with plain white icing, and paint them after they were done. I saw this idea on Pinterest and thought it was so adorable, and would be such a good idea for a having fun with friends or family. Each person can personalize their cookies, and it’s kind of a fool proof way to have them come out looking cute every time. Just mix some gel food coloring with clear alcohol, or a clear extract (you only need a tiny bit) and then you’re good to go! I just painted whatever I felt like, and they all turned out so festive! You could just do some straight lines and it would be adorable.

I hope your Valentine's Day is filled with love, fun, and amazing memories.

XOXO Hailey