Happy Valentine's Day!

What better excuse to bake than Valentine's Day, combine that with me finally having the weekend off, let the baking bonanza begin! So given that I love Valentine's Day I had so many things I wanted to bake and decorate, but given my hunny can only eat so much, I limited myself to 3 varieties of heart-felt treats. 

• vanilla cupcakes with Swiss meringue buttercream and royal icing hearts
• 'conversation heart' sugar cookies
• chocolate sandwich cookies with vanilla cream filling

I began my cupcakes on Friday evening. I baked all of the cupcakes and made the royal icing color flow hearts. I then made my Swiss meringue buttercream and decorated away on Saturday morning. Such a wonderful Saturday morning! Here are some pics to illustrate some of my steps involved and of course the final product! 

• The color flow hearts were a lot of fun. Simple royal icing in pink and purple piped onto parchment and swirled into various designs. When they are dry, they just pop right off the parchment. To make these even better, once they were dry, I brushed on some silver luster dust to make them pretty and sparkly (hard to see in these pics)!

 

 

 

Yummy piles of Swiss meringue butter cream go perfectly with the moist vanilla cupcakes! Oh and just in case you are looking for cute cupcake liners like these...check out Bake it Pretty, they have soooo many cool cupcake liners, they can make any cupcake look special!

As for my 'conversation heart' sugar cookies, I made the dough on Friday evening, let it chill overnight, then cut-out the cookies and baked them Saturday, finally I decorated on Sunday (by far my most favorite part about sugar cookies, other than the eating of course). You may have seen this idea in a number of places...Martha Stewart, various baking blogs, etc...I couldn't resist making them. I mean who can deny the nostalgia one feels when they see those cute little sayings on the conversation hearts? Not me, so I gave them a shot. They turned out so cute, I just love them! Even better, check out this article from Reader's Digest that talks about the last 10 years of conversation heart sayings, who knew "email me" came out in 1998! Too fun!

 

  

Finally, my chocolate sandwich vanilla cream cookies. I too made the dough on Friday evening, let it chill overnight, then cut-out the cookies and baked them Saturday, finally decorating and sandwiching on Sunday. I came up with these to mimic one of my all-time favorite cookies...OREOS! They have a crisp cookie sandwiched around a thick layer of vanilla cream reminiscent of the oh so wonderful double stuf OREO. They would have been perfect just like that, but I felt they needed a little decor to liven them up. So here they are!

 

 

Well, this was a great weekend filled with love and baking with my hunny. Despite Valentine's Day being so commercialized, it is still such a fun, love-filled holiday, it is hard not to get in the mood, even if you hate it! Hope these treats bring you a smile and some inspiration! As always...happy baking...happier eating!

A couple more things...

What else says Valentine's day than sweets, flowers, and wine? Check out the beautiful flower arrangement my sis made my hunny and I for V-day. She has an amazing talent for floral design, and has a blooming business called smell, be sure to check out her site!

As for the wine, we are trying out different wines to serve at our up-coming wedding in June, and we recently stumbled upon this one. I will tell you in advance the taste is great, buttery with a hint of vanilla (as I am working on my 2nd glass while I write), but what really sealed the deal is its name...Cupcake Vineyards! There is no other wine that is more suitable for our wedding than one called Cupcake, just look at their adorable logo, and better yet, I think it would go wonderfully with my vanilla cupcakes, I better go grab one!