Valentine Cookie recipe and a little treat

I found these cute heart bottles at Craftwarehouse in Portland. I filled them with Jelly Belly's and made a quick nestie heart tag. The sentiment is from a retired SU! word set. Added a few red pearls and all done! I made these for my friends at work!

I am on a sugar buzz!

I did my own sugar cookie taste test this year...I made cream cheese cookies, orange juice flavored sugar cookies and a powdered sugar recipe...my old standard Betty Crocker recipe won over both the others...although when you smother them with frosting they sort of all taste the same LOL! Here's my favorite recipe from the Betty Crockers Cooky Book.

Mary's Sugar Cookies

1 1/2 sifted powdered sugar (I'm too lazy to sift LOL)
1 cup butter or margarine
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp almond flavoring (sometimes I use all vanilla)
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cream of tartar

Mix sugar and butter. Add egg and flavorings, mix thoroughly. Measure flour by dipping method or by sifting. Stir dry ingredients together and blend in. Refrigerate 2 to 3 hours (or overnight) to chill quicker separate dough into thirds, flatten and wrap with plastic wrap.

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Roll 3/16" thick, on lightly floured pastry cloth. Cut with cutters. Place on lightly greased baking sheet (I use my silpat non stick mat and do not grease). Bake 7 or 8 minutes.

Frost with your favorite frosting. I use the buttercream recipe from Wilton.

Frosting

1/2 cup margarine
1/2 cup shortening(Crisco)
1 lb powdered sugar (4 cups)
1 tsp vanilla (clear if you want a crisp clear color)

add a small amount of hot water to the frosting mixture to get desire consistency. Maybe a tablespoon or two.

My frosting of preference this year was a cookie dipped in melted almond bark. I then colored some of the bark with pink paste coloring and sort of splattered it over the cookie with a fork...these are yummy! Very quick and easy!