Valentine's Day Cookies

This year's Valentine's Day marks the first anniversary of a cookie decorating tradition. Last year, Louise, Hijiri and Liz trekked over to my house to decorate a huge batch of cookies I'd already baked. The decorating is great but the best part is coming together to catch up with dear friends from last year's school. That first Cookie Day led to memorable get-togethers including a summer getaway to Harrison Hot Springs, Halloween Cookie Day and a (future) Birthday Kidnapping.  We laugh. We play. We have fun. Loads of it.

Liz couldn't make it this time 'round, but Lou, Hijiri and I (along with Hijiri's super sweet kids Natasha and Eric) played with a batch of cookies I'd baked using a new recipe.

This recipe is far richer than the one I ordinarily use. The cookies almost had a shortbread kind of texture to them and although that's not necessarily a bad thing, I had to handle them with more care than I usually would with my original recipe.

Despite the long chill, my cookies did not hold their shape very well compared to my standby recipe because of more butter and less flour. I upped the lemon flavor (because that is my signature) by replacing vanilla extract with lemon extract and adding the zest of one lemon. (I totally rubbed the sugar and zest together, Dorrie style.)

All the cookies were baked in my small kitchen.

The decorating was all done at Hijiri's where she has a beaut of a stand mixer that she's had for years. She's so lucky to have the counter space to keep it out permanently (there's no way I have the counter space or the storage space for one). She's living my dream.

My excellent assistant Natasha putting in a "jshuuuuug" of white gel colouring.

My new favourite design is what I call crosshatching (I'm sure crosshatching actually means something else but it's what I'm callin' it.) The picture colour isn't quite true to the real colour of the icing.

Missing are another two pictures showing how I added more purple lines in between the already existing ones and same with white lines.  Also, these were taken before we figured out that the bulbs of icing at the ends of the lines could be eliminated by starting the lines off the cookie and later wiping off the excess with a toothpick.

This design gives the cookies a texture that is impossible to resist touching once dried.

All these beautiful cookies and only Natasha wanted to eat any. I took most of the cookies for my Valentine's Day Party. Seventeen Ks couldn't finish the cookies (which makes me feel relieved? pleased? don't quite know the word I'm looking for) which is why I'm grateful for growing Gr. 7 students.

PS. Many many thanks to Meg for lending me her big fancy camera. It's definitely on my birthday wish list.