Shortbread Cookies

There’s just something so fun about decorating sweet treats with fun colors, sprinkles and glitter! What better time to do so than Valentine’s day!

I have the sweetest Valentine’s of them all (Aaron & Zoey), but this year Valentine’s day is becoming so much more to me than celebrating my love for my husband and pup. This year, Valentine’s day is celebrating my love for myself, for my family and friends, for all the women in this world, for our LGBT community, for all races and all cultures.

Valentine’s day is sometimes just viewed as a “Hallmark Holiday”, but what if we turned it into something more this year? What if we make it bigger than a date night that we spend with our significant others and in addition we act and speak with love with everyone we come encounter with; what if we just put out love into the universe without expectation? Sounds like good karma

Speaking of love, I love shortbread cookies, and Ina Garten makes a delicious shortbread cookie – so I snagged her recipe here for these shortbread cookies and tweaked it. To decorate the cookies, I used a simple royal icing recipe from Alton Brown here.

Ingredients:

• 3 sticks unsalted butter at room temperature
• 1 cup pure cane sugar (you can use granulated, I like pure cane because it’s not processed and has a good texture with amino acids, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants – sounds good right?!)
• 1 tsp vanilla paste
• 3 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 tsp salt

For the royal icing:

• 2 egg whites
• 1 tsp vanilla paste
• 4 cups powdered sugar

To bake:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Mix butter and sugar together in stand mixer with a paddle attachment.
3. Add vanilla and combine.
4. Add flour and salt, mixing on low speed until dough starts to form.
5. On a floured surface, roll out the dough around 1/4inch thick.
6. Use cookie-cutters of your choice to form shapes, then place cookies on a baking sheet.
7. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown (depends on thickness of cookie).
8. While cookies cool, mix egg whites until frothy.
9. Add the vanilla and powdered sugar to the egg whites and mix on high speed for about 5 minutes until icing forms stiff peaks.
10. Separate icing as desired to add different food colorings and decorate to your liking.

Enjoy with your Valentine!

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