Happy Valentine's Day, cupcake!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! I thought I would share the cute cupcake cookies that I made for Erin to give to her classmates for a special Valentine's Day treat.
The idea for these cookies came from the cute cupcake cards I found at Target a few weeks ago. I used a butter cookie recipe this time instead of the sugar cookie recipe from last month and I like this one much better. I added a lollipop stick to the back of the cookies before baking them. This was really simple to do - just place the lollipop stick on the back of the raw cookie and press down slightly. Then put a bit of cookie dough over the stick, turn the cookie over and press down slightly again. The cookie bakes up flat and now you have a cute cookie pop! For the icing I used homemade buttercream and tinted it the shade of blue and purple that I wanted. For the bottom part of the cupcake (the wrapper) I used Betty Crocker Chocolate cookie icing. I piped the chocolate icing on first and let it dry for about an hour and then I piped on the buttercream icing. Each cupcake was topped with an M&M "cherry". I let the buttercream dry over night before packing the cookies up in clear treat bags.

I think that they came out pretty cute and Erin's classmates seemed to really like them!
Hope you are all having a happy love filled day. And to share the cookie love I am posting the butter cookie recipe and buttercream recipe below xoxo



Butter Cookies

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
3/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt
- In a large bowl, beat the butter and the granulated sugar with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until light and fluffy
- Beat in the egg, then the vanilla
- On low speed, gradually add in the flour mixture, stirring until just incorporated
- Divide the dough into 4 pieces, shape each piece into a disk, wrap in plastic and refrigerate for about one hour (dough can be made up to two days ahead)
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees
- On a slightly floured surface roll out the dough, one piece at a time, to 1/8 inch thickness
- Cut out shapes using assorted 2 to 2 1/2 inch cookie cutters
- Place cookies 1 inch apart on a parchment lined cookie sheet
- Bake the cookies for 8 to 10 minutes, until edges are lightly browned
- Cool for 1 to 2 minutes on cookie sheet before transferring to a wire rack
- Cool completely before icing

notes: scraps of dough may be chilled and re-rolled once
I rolled out my dough to 1/4 inch thickness and baked the cookies for 12 minutes instead


Buttercream Icing

2 sticks unsalted butter
3 3/4 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-3 tablespoons milk

- Cream together the butter and vanilla
- Slowly add the powdered sugar
- Add in the milk (number of tablespoons of milk depends on consistency you are looking for)
- Tint any color you like or leave plain
- Makes enough to ice two 8 inch round cakes or 24 cupcakes