Sweet Valentine: Soft Sugar Cookie Recipe

 So tomorrow is Valentines Day.

Does anyone else feel like Valentines Day is the one holiday that really creeps up on you?

You've just finished celebrating Christmas and the New Year and bam Valentines Day is knocking on your door.

I decided to bake up some valentines treats for my family as an early valentines present,

seeing as my actual Valentine is 10, 000 miles away. 

This year was Sugar Cookies - two ways! 

Half of the batch had chewy jam heart centres, while the second half of the batch was frosted.

Two different cookies from one recipe? Simple! 

I still haven't decided which of the two I like best.

The jam hearts are definitely more grown up and sophisticated,

while the frosted hearts are super cute!

These cookies melt in your mouth, they're not a crunchy cookie whatsoever

This is partly due to the sour cream in the recipe which give them a super soft texture.

Sweetheart Sugar Cookies 

 1/2 cup sour cream

1 cup sugar

125g butter

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 1/2 cups flour 

1/2 tsp salt

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 180*C (350*F).

Beat butter until soft 

(if you're using softened butter, you can skip this step - I'm just too impatient)

add in sour cream, sugar, eggs and vanilla and beat for 2 - 3 minutes. 

Add dry ingredients and mix until well combined. 

Cover dough and chill in fridge for 30 minutes or until firm.

Turn out dough onto a floured board, roll out to about 1/2 centimetre/1/4 inch thick.

(You may need to add a little more flour to make the dough more workable - but don't add too much or you won't have soft cookies!)

Use cookie cutters to make shapes and transfer to a lined cookie sheet.

Bake for 10 minutes until light golden brown - no longer!

When you take the cookies out of the oven they may look underdone - but don't worry, you'll thank me later for your soft melt in your mouth cookies!

Adaptions -

Crunchy cookies: Bake for 5 or so minutes longer, your cookies will be brown on the outside with a lighter brown centre and will harden upon cooling.

Jam Centred Cookies: Cut out shapes in the middle of your cookies and fill with jam, bake for 8 minutes at 180*C before turning the oven down to 120*C for a further 5-10 minutes, or until jam starts to set. 

Sugar Cookie Frosting

125g Butter

2 1/2 cups Icing Sugar

2 tbsp Milk 

1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract

Beat butter until soft.

Add sugar, milk and vanilla and beat until pale and creamy.

Add in food colouring as you wish!

All you have left to do is package them up for your Sweet Valentine! 

That's if they make it to them.

So tell me,

What's your favourite holiday?

and how are you spending Valentines Day?

My favourite holiday is Christmas, HANDS DOWN. 

If it could be Christmas every single day of the year I'd be in heaven!

I don't know how people could ever tire of it!