Last Minute Valentine’s Cookies: Minimalist Design, Max Impact

Valentine’s Day is right around the corner?!  How did that sneak up on us?!  Well, it may be too late to special order any custom cookie cutters, but if you have a simple heart cutter (and what cookier doesn’t, amiright?), you can still create some cookies that wow!

Step 1: Bake those cookies.  Wilmalyn went with Strawberry to really double down on the pink factor for Valentine’s Day (find a delicious freeze-dried strawberry powder here.)

Step 2: For a cohesive set, pick a color scheme. Wilmalyn used Cookie Countess gel colors in Royal Red Velvet, a combination of Preppy Pink and Sunshine Yellow (to make a peachy/orange color), and Whipped White (to make a variety of tints).

Step 3: Flood, flood, flood. Get your base icing down in your chosen color palette and let it dry (save some plain cookies for a different design later).

Step 4: Play with line work! This is an easy way to decorate a cookie that looks way more complicated than it really is. Wilmalyn used a PME 00 piping tip to add vertical lines, squiggly lines in alternating colors, concentric circles that fill the whole cookie, and a mock wood grain pattern.  There’s no right or wrong here; be as simple or creative as you want!

Step 5: Grab those plain cookies and play with sectioning.  Wilmalyn used an edible marker to draw wavy lines onto the bare cookie to give herself an idea of where to pipe.  For one, she made six sections and flooded every other one, allowing them to dry to the touch before going back to flood the other three sections; allowing those first three to dry before adding the rest is what created that funky wave effect.

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Step 6: For one last “how did you do that” moment, on another plain cookie, flood each of the three sections a different color, but don’t wait for one to dry before you add the next.  This will result in one level layer of icing with three different colors.  Allow the icing to begin to crust and then poke it gently with the back end of a paintbrush.  This will create a crackled, textured look that can really take a simple cookie to the next level.