Swirly Valentine's Cupcakes

Something pretty for Valentine's Day.

To make cupcakes with swirls inside, make a batch of white cake batter, and add food colouring to half. We put pink in the bottom of half the cupcake wrappers, and white in the other half.

Then add the other colour on top of the first one.

Swirl them together with a toothpick.

Then bake and cool them as usual.

To make swirly icing, we put pink and white icing in my decorating bag at the same time, and then piped it onto the cupcakes. So pretty. As a finishing touch, we added little heart sprinkles to the top. Cute.

Here is our filled cupcake tower.

Last step: eat them up!

Simple Heart Puzzles

I made a very quick and simple game for us to play on Valentine's Day.

I just made some hearts of different sizes from pink and red paper, then cut each in half. Done.

My two-year-old did really well finding the pairs that went together.

Sometimes it was tricky to get the cut sections to line-up,

But when he got it, he was so proud! (and so was I!)

Heart Braids

If you tilt your head to the side, you might see what my daughter's hair looked like on Valentine's Day.

I thought it would be fun to do something special with her hair, so I made a heart. I just started with a single pony-tail, and then divided the hair into two. I braided each of the two halves, and then to create the heart, I just formed a half-heart with each braid and bobby-pinned it into place. Easy, fast, and cute.

Chocolate Dipped Valentine's Cookies

We always make sugar cookies at Valentine's Day. Usually we decorate them with pink frosting and candies, and last year we turned our regular cookies into cookie-pops.

This year, I added chocolate. Yum!

To make them, I just make regular heart-shaped sugar cookies, and when they were cool, I dipped one half in melted chocolate chips. Tip: I set down each cookie on waxed paper until they chocolate set. Then clean up was just throwing away the waxed paper. Ta-da!

I really liked the way they looked, (more of a grown-up cookie) and even more the way they tasted. To make them more kid-appealing, I sprinkled half of the cookies with Valentine sprinkles while the chocolate was still soft.

A Visit From Cupid

My husband teases me that I have created a 'nocturnal patron' for every occasion. Naturally Santa Claus comes and leaves gifts during the night, and not surprisingly the Easter Bunny does the same thing. Then, of course, there is the Tooth Fairy who comes by night as well. But my children also get visited by leprechauns on St. Patrick's Day and a Magic School Bus on the night before their first day of school.

And on Valentine's Day, they get a surprise visit from Cupid.

He doesn't shoot his arrows at them, but he does decorate their bedroom doors while they sleep.

He also leaves each of them a little baggie full of Valentines treats: chocolate hearts, red and pink jelly beans, lip-shaped gum drops....whatever he happens to find on sale. The bag is always placed directly outside their doors and in the center of some confetti hearts (Cupid's version of Pixie Dust) so that as soon as they wake up and leave their rooms in the morning, they find their goodies.

I just love their excitement when they find their stash each year!

Valentines For Classmates

The inspiration....
Earlier in the week a Joy School friend dropped off these yummy and adorable Valentines treats for us. They were sugar cookies that she had baked on a stick to create kind of a cookie-sicle. I just loved them! Such a fun way to make a standard just a little different.

The next day, my kids were elbow deep in Valentine making and I thought 'wouldn't it be cute if we could include a cookie-on-a-stick for the kindergarten kids?'

So this afternoon we hit the kitchen and whipped up a batch of our own, which yielded very fun results.

Just use whatever sugar cookie recipe you love. If you don't happen to have one, here is mine:

1 cup butter (or margarine)

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon creme of tartar

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 cups flour

Cream butter and sugar, add the eggs and mix. Add the dry ingredients and mix again.

(The dough is quite soft, so you may want to refrigerate it for an hour before you use it, but I always just jump to the rolling and do my best to be gentle and light-handed.) Roll out the dough on a floured surface. I usually like to roll my cookies very thin, but to make the stick more stable, I rolled this out to about 3/4 cm. Cut out hearts with a smallish cookie cutter.

Put the cookie on a greased cookie sheet. Then gently slide a wooden kabob skewer through the cookie at the point. Then we added some Valentines sprinkles.

Since these were thicker, it took about 10-12 minutes at 350 for these to bake.

After they were cooled, we put them in clear cellophane bags and tied them with pink curling ribbon. We punched a hole in the corner of each Valentine my daughter had made, slide the ribbon through it and tied it securely. Then we curled the ribbons and they were done! So cute! We both just love them. She is so excited to slip one of these into the mailbox of each of her friends at school tomorrow!

Marshmallow-Chocolate Valentines

My oldest signed up to bring the treats for his class at their Valentine's Day party at school tomorrow, and this afternoon we spent some time together in the kitchen creating his contribution. I didn't want to just do regular sugar cookies, though they are wonderful. I thought something different might be fun.

I got this recipe from an old Martha Stewart Kids magazine years ago and we have made it several times since then. I tried to find it on her website tonight so I could just link you up there, but I couldn't, so you'll have to follow my instructions. (The measurements and ingredients are the same, but I just used a one-bowl method, and she has several things going on. I've done it her way, but honestly haven't noticed a difference.)

In the mixer, combine 1/2 cup butter (I used margarine), 1 cup sugar. Beat until creamed together. Add 1 egg and beat again.

Add 1/2 cup milk, and 1 teaspoon vanilla, and mix.

Then add the dry ingredients: 1 3/4 cup flour, 3/4 cup cocoa, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt. Mix until combined. You might want to scrape the edges once or twice while mixing.

Scoop out 1 1/2" balls of dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350 for 10 minutes.

While cookies are baking, cut approx 15-20 large marshmallows in half.

When cookies are firm, put 1/2 of a marshmallow on top of each, and return to oven for 2 minutes. Remove to wire racks and let cool completely.

While cookies are cooling, make your own favourite chocolate icing. Martha has a recommended one, but it is more work than my usual. Do what you know.

Cover the marshmallow and the top of the cookie with the chocolate icing. The idea is to surprise everyone with the gooey center when they take that first bite.

Sprinkle heart-shaped candies on the top to make them more themed for the occasion. Then we put them in pink cupcake liners to make them fancy, and for ease of distribution at school.

Here he is with his treats all boxed up and ready to go. I'm sure he can't wait to watch his friends take a bite tomorrow and discover the marshmallowy goodness inside!

Valentine Sun Catcher

We've made sun catchers before, but we decided to do it again for Valentine's Day.

To make it festive, we only cut up tissue paper in pink, red and purple. We could have added white too, but I didn't have any on hand.

We cut out a heart shaped frame, peeled a length of transparent Contact paper, and placed the frame on it.

Then we filled the center in with the tissue. She was very careful to not let ANY spaces be left when she was through.

We peeled off a second sticky paper, and sandwiched the heart.

Next, cut around the edge of the heart to get rid of all that extra paper.

Finished, and proud of it!

Hugs And Kisses Tic Tac Toe

A couple of years ago, a friend passed on this idea to play Xs and Os as a Valentine's game. You know, since XOXO means hugs and kisses. We've done it ever since, but this year as I cut out the construction paper to play it, it occurred to me that I could do a heart-shaped O to make it even more Valentine-y. My daughter, who adores all things girly, LOVED this addition to the game.

We cut out large pieces from red and pink construction paper and play it on our living room floor. I just made my grid with kitchen string, but to make it prettier you could use red or pink ribbon. But kitchen string is what I had, so kitchen string is what I used.

Sorry about the pictures. For some reason they are loading sideways and I cannot get them to flip. Here they are playing.

Hearts win!

Peanut Butter Valentines

The inspiration for these cookies was from Martha Stewart, but like just about everything, I changed it a little. For Valentine's Day, they had made her Peanut Butter and Jam Thumbprint cookies, but used their thumbs to make a heart instead of a regular impression. I thought it was such a cute idea, and the cookie looked so pretty, but my kids don't like peanut butter and jam.

Then the little light bulb inside my head flashed on. My kids may not like peanut butter and jam, but they do like peanut butter and chocolate!

So we went ahead and made our own version of a Valentine's themed peanut butter cookie. Since I have a recipe I like, I didn't use the one from Martha, and just went with what I know.

Cream together:
1 cup margarine (or butter)
1 cup smooth peanut butter
1 cup white sugar
2 cups brown sugar
2 eggs

Add 2 1/2 cups flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

Mix well.

Roll dough into 1 1/2 " balls and place on lightly greased cookie sheet.

Here comes the Valentine's Day adaptation....

Use your thumb to press a heart shape into the top of each cookie.

Bake at 325 for 10 minutes. When they come out of the oven, I needed to touch up my heart shapes a bit.

While they cooled, I melted some chocolate chips (sorry, no amount to guide you. It was probably about a cup and a half, but I can't say for sure).

I put my melted chocolate into an icing bag with a small circular tip on the end, and then piped a heart into the depressions on top of the cooled cookies.

Repeat, repeat, repeat!

Have a taste. (Repeat, repeat, repeat!)

After we had sampled our treats, we packed them up in little Valentine's boxes, with or without tissue (I couldn't get the tissue to work in the boxes that were actually shaped like hearts, but it worked very prettily in the rectangular ones).

Then we each chose a family that we would like to share the love with for Valentine's day and went to their homes to deliver them.