Happy Valentines Day

I wanted to make something fun for Valentines day... when the kids were little I would make a few (like 6 to 10) dozen cupcakes and invite all their friends over. Sit them all around the table where there are bowls of different frostings and sprinkles and let them all have at it. I remember kids stacking cupcakes with layers of frosting.. and kids just eating their cupcakes.. and sometimes just eating the sprinkles or the frosting. Lots of good fun memories. I always had so many kids running around that it was about how many I could make. When it came to cookies they could eat them as fast as I pulled them out of the oven. That and sneaking bites of cookie dough. I would have to triple or quadruple the recipes.

I made a cake this weekend... had not been thinking about Valentines day, I had just wanted cake... so I wanted to do something different today. I made big soft old fashioned sour cream sugar cookies and had printed out a friends recipe for butter cream to frost them with. Was just getting ready to mix up the frosting when my friend posted on facebook that she had just made the best butter cream frosting ever... she was sweet enough to email me a copy of it real quick and I gave it a try.

The frosting was so easy to make... I had to make a few changes as I only made half a batch and did not have the cream so just used milk. I added a bit of food coloring to it because I wanted pink and then I did a tiny bit of almond flavoring with the vanilla. This recipe will be used many more times.... even though I only made half a recipe I had a bunch left over.. I put it in a zip lock bag and put it in the fridge.. not sure how it will hold up but I only made 2 dozen cookies. I will update on that in a day or two when I make some cupcakes to put it on :)

*update on the frosting keeping* it keeps like a charm.. I scooped all that was left into a ziplock bag and stuck it in the fridge... pulled it out a couple of days later... sat it on the counter for a short bit... massaged the bag a bit and nipped off the corner and put it on some cupcakes.. looked great and tasted wonderful! Sorry no pictures... everyone was eating them as fast as I could frost them.

Here is the link to the frosting recipe, along with some beautiful cupcakes, recipe is at the bottom of this post ~ Butter Cream Frosting at Java Cup Cakes

Here is the cookie recipe

Old fashioned sour cream cookies

This is my favorite sugar cookie recipe... well one of them! This one is really easy and always taste great.

Mix together

1/2 cup ( one cube ) softened butter
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup white sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla *you could add a little dash of peppermint too if you wanted*
1 egg

add in

1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Today I wanted to make heart cookies so I scooped out some dough and using floured hand I patted it flat on a floured sheet until I had them as thick as I wanted them and then used the heart cookie cutter. You can also just roll into a ball and then roll in sprinkles and press flat onto the cookie sheet. The cookies do not get any bigger when they bake.. so don't make them too flat. I like them pretty thick and soft. I bake them in the oven at 350 for about 7 minutes.. I watch them pretty close.. I do not want the edges to start turning brown.. then they can get a bit crunchy.. still good.. but I like mine softer.

~Michelle