Happy Valentine’s Day!! In an effort to stick to my resolution of learning how to decorate cookies well, I thought it would be fun to share my progress with you as I go. Not only will these posts serve as a fun visual diary, but sharing what I bake here means you can totally hold be accountable and call me out when you don’t see a post in a while. Y’all better call me out!
Let’s kick off the first post with these Valentine’s Day cookies I made for Ryan’s co-workers:
Recipe: both the cookie + buttercream are from the book Cookie Class.
I HIGHLY recommend picking up a copy of Cookie Class if you want to learn to make an amazing sugar cookie. While mine aren’t the most professional looking cookies yet, they taste so, so good. I’ve made the recipe a couple times now and it’s never let me down.
Here’s a bit the reality to go along with the polished photos. Clearly I’m still learning because my god did I make a mess when making the frosting. After adding too much powdered sugar at once, everything just flew out of the mixer and all over the counters. I think once I can make cookies without doing this, I’ll consider myself semi-decent at baking.
I recently came around to using a piping bag for frosting and it’s been so much better than just spreading the buttercream on with a knife. I’m not a polished decorator yet, but hoping that it just comes with a few more rounds of cookies. Also looking to explore other icing methods, so if you have a tried + true, let me know!
If you’re curious about anything about my process or the tools I’m using, just let me know! Always happy to share.
One last bonus baked good– I also made a cake! I discovered edible sticker from Goodie Goodie and had to give them a try (use code THECRAFTEDBAKES for 10% off). As it turns out, they’re amazing and such an easy way to decorate if you’re not super experienced. After watching a few dozen YouTube videos, I think I got the basics down for building a layered cake. I’ll definitely add more layers next time to give it a bit more height, but I’m pretty happy with how it turned out!
So that’s it for February treats! How are your resolutions coming along so far? Still on track or ready to set new ones in December?