Valentine’s Cookies

So I may be a working mom (and I love it) but I also love being a good daycare mom. Juggling those two things can be hectic but I am getting the hang of it! Lucky for me, I have my pinning partner in crime/ex-teacher who laid down the “good school mom rules” for me last year.  I learned that holiday parties at school are an important time for me to step up and pitch in. So now, I always try and send something for the teacher, something for the class and when appropriate, something for each little kiddo.

The most recent holiday festivity at daycare was Valentine’s day. I saw this pin and loved the idea!!



LINK



I was telling friends at work how I was going to make cookies and put heart shaped chocolate in the center instead of Hershey kisses. Well I have a friend who had one of “those” mom’s, the BEST school mom out of everyone. He insisted I make heart shaped cookies with heart shaped chocolates if I REALLY wanted to be a good mom (and that’s what his mom would do). So of course, I had to step up to the plate!

Let me start with…I’ve never made cut out cookies before. I’m sure I did plenty as a kid, but I can’t remember what I wore yesterday let alone what I did 25 years ago. So I got everything I needed to make the cookies and one night while my kiddo was eating his dinner, I started the debacle of me and the cookies. Betty Crocker has it down for dummies, the instructions on my sugar cookie packet had separate instructions for cut out cookies versus regular round ones! Thanks for that Betty. So I followed the instructions and still learned a valuable lesson: You need A LOT of flour! I am sure seasoned bakers can do with less, but me, I went through a few a cups trying to keep it all from sticking.

To sum up the debacle, I started with dough sticking to the rolling pin. Then dough sticking to the cutting board. Then more dough sticking to both (around the edges where I clearly didn’t flour enough). Finally, I got the hang of it and cut out some heart shaped cookies!

After the baking was done, I learned another valuable lesson: DO NOT move the cookies from the sheet pan to a cooling rack!!! After moving this cookie, I cleared some fridge space, put down hot pads, and put both sheet pans directly in the fridge to cool, worked like a charm.

This is what happens when you try and move the cookies to cool:

Melted the chocolate instantly :(

All in all, by the end, I got the hang of it, made some cute and yummy cookies and everyone was happy! I even packaged them in cute white and red polka dot boxes to send to school!



My Final Product



Happy Pinning! ~ Val