HOME TOUR

Valentine’s Day and sweets just go hand-in-hand like summer and the beach. These delightful sugar cookies are decorated with tiny piped hearts lightly colored pink with cranberry juice. A great natural alternative to food dye and much better for your body. Lovely frosted sugar cookies–a perfect sweet treat for the little (or big!) loves in your life.

THE RECIPE

I used Martha Stewart’s sugar cookie recipe but cut it in half because we didn’t need that many cookies floating around this house. You-know-who eats them (ME!). If you’re looking for a delicious vegan alternative, you can use this recipe here I created a few years ago. I used a ruler and knife to make rectangle cookies (2 x 4″) and then shaved the edge off with these square fluted cookie cutters to get the crimped look. I didn’t want to buy a whole new cookie cutter so I made do with what I had. And it worked perfectly.

MAKING THE FROSTING

Bake cookies and let cool completely before frosting. I made royal icing and dipped my cookies in the frosting to coat the top holding them down for a bit to let the excess frosting run off before setting them down to harden. Once the frosting is hardened, use some more royal frosting colored with cranberry juice (I have 100% cranberry juice, the tart stuff, in my refrigerator). Thicken the pink frosting to a pipeable consistency with some more powdered sugar. They didn’t taste like cranberry juice at all.

PIPING TINY HEARTS

I filled a frosting bag with the pink frosting and sniped the tiniest amount of the tip off so I could control the size of frosting being piped out. No special frosting tips needed. You could easily use a ziplock bag if you have those handy. The hearts are dainty and imperfect and so lovely.

Tomorrow I’ll show you how to bag them to make the cutest little giftable treats. I hope you’ve enjoyed this lovely frosted sugar cookies idea, we sure did! Make sure to take a peek at all my friend’s Valentine’s Day cookie inspiration on this sweet blog hop. These beautiful images are the work of my oh-so-talented friend, Ruth Eileen Photography.

Now are you ready for this cuteness! Take a peek at my friends below.

Happy Happy Nester

Janine made these adorable Valentine’s Day sugar cookies and wrote sweet messages on them. My kiddos would love this.

Modern Glam

Ashley made these adorable raspberry-glazed sugar cookie hearts that are not only look delicious but so very pretty.

My 100 Year Old Home

Leslie has these fun and easy-to-decorate sugar cookies that look so pretty displayed.