Baking for Valentine's Day 2021

February 17, 2021

I enjoy celebrating all holidays and every Valentine's Day, I try to make something special and meaningful to give to my nearest and dearest.

This year, I gave each of my male friends and colleagues a special limited edition heart-shaped gift box of my Martha Stewart CBD gummies. And, for my grandchildren and some other close friends, I baked and decorated dozens of heart-shaped cookies in different sizes and shades of pink and white - my granddaughter, Jude, helped me and everyone loved them. If you didn't already see this year's cookies, be sure to watch my videos on my Instagram page @MarthaStewart48.

Enjoy these photos.

: This year, Canopy Growth and I offered this Martha Stewart CBD Limited Edition six-flavor sampler gift box for Valentine’s Day. They sold out very quickly.

: Valentine’s Day is over, but you can still purchase a 60-piece gummy sampler containing wellness gummies in 15 different flavors inspired by the ingredients I love and use in baking and cooking. Check it out on MarthaStewartCBD.com.

: For my cookies, I used my Sugar Cookies recipe from “Martha Stewart’s Christmas: Entertaining, Decorating, and Giving” – I am sure many of you have a copy, but if not, you can still find it. It has so many wonderful recipes and tips.

: The first step is to gather all the ingredients – here are all the decorating ingredients and my giant heart-shaped cookie cutters. I have had these cutters for years.

: I use Domino whenever recipes call for sugar. I use it in my own baking and whenever we bake on television or social media. Domino is used on the east coast, while their C&H brand sugar is used on the west coast.

: We sifted all the dry ingredients – the flour and the confectioner’s sugar. Sifted flour, which is much lighter than unsifted flour, is easier to mix into other ingredients when making dough.

: Then I creamed the butter and sugar. Technically, creaming means mixing butter and sugar together on a moderately high speed until well blended, fluffy and pale yellow.

: I also use Vermont Creamery Cultured Butter. It is a cultured butter – the cream has been aged with cultures for about a day. Cultured butter has a distinct, tangy flavor with all of the creaminess of rich European butter. Vermont Creamery lets their high-fat cream age for 20 hours. The longer the cream ages, the more pronounced the tangy flavor will be.

: The dry ingredients were added to the mixture until well-blended. Then, I added a large egg, a half-teaspoon of vanilla extract, and two tablespoons of cognac. One can also use brandy.

: Once it was ready, I put it on a piece of plastic wrap and rolled out the dough in two batches, so it’s easier to manage.

: After rolling, they were completely wrapped and chilled for at least 30-minutes – mine were chilled overnight. Chilled dough will help retain the shape of the cookies; soft, warm dough tends to lose its shape when cut and moved.

: The next morning, the doughs are perfect. They get really hard, but they roll out so beautifully.

: Here they are about to go into the oven. It’s such a treat for me to bake, it’s become an annual tradition. These cookies are baked at 400-degrees Fahrenheit for 10-minutes.

: Here are some batches already cooling – all perfectly browned. The cookies are about 1/8-inch thick.

: I made large and small cookies – some with decorative edges and some left smooth.

: My process for decorating sugar cookies involves the four “Ds” – dipping, dripping, decorating, and drying. Sugar cookies are delicious anytime on their own, but they also make ideal holiday cookies when decorated with royal icing. I used royal icing made from confectioner’s sugar, meringue from my own egg whites, food coloring, water, and then hand-dipped each cookie very carefully. I do this instead of damming and flooding, which is a much more precise method.

: I dipped just the top of the cookie, so each one looks smooth and perfect. The frosting has to be exactly the right consistency to dip the cookies satisfactorily. And remove them very carefully, letting the excess drip. Once they are flat, the icing will level out into a perfect surface for decorating.

: While the white frosting is still wet, I use pink icing on top. I make horizontal lines first across the cookie.

: Then, using the tip of a bamboo skewer, I just pull the frosting down from the top to the bottom of the cookie making this Napoleonic design. It is called this because the same design is seen on Napoleon pastries.

: Jude and I decorated so many cookies. Jude is extremely artistic and creative. Here she is making a concentric circle pattern on a cookie before she uses her skewer to make the Napoleonic decoration.