Brett doesn’t bake often, but when he does, the look on his face is pure joy. He’s a sucker for baking breads and cookies. I, on the other hand, have joy and spread joy when I throw some pre-made cookies onto a plate and call it a day! 

BUT THIS YEAR, 

We discovered there’s a way for both of us to enjoy baking. Brett makes the cookies and the icing while I color the icing and meticulously decorate the cookies. 

If you are or know a couple who is very independent of one another, who doesn’t often have shared interests, then you know finding something you both love is a big win. 

And especially in our case, most of our arguments start in the kitchen because of one person critiquing the cooking, chopping, or dish-washing decisions of the other— so it’s nice to be in the kitchen in a peaceful way! Can you relate?

We made a batch of autumn themed cookies last year, and this year we made a batch of Valentine’s Day themed cookies. I know royal icing is easier to decorate with, but we both actually really love the taste of Butter Cream icing. So that’s what we made! I love how they turned out! 

We lost our piping spouts (haha, is that what they are called? Or are they just called pipes?), so we piped through plastic ziploc bags this time. It wasn’t my favorite way to decorate, but it worked for what we needed. 

I’ve really been enjoying pink and yellow color combos this year, so of course that’s what I went for… and after I decorated all of them, I realized the yellow looks like mustard. I know that would probably not work for some of you. 

But…. Sorry not sorry, these were still cute, tasty, and fun! 

We also realized we didn’t have any red food dye to make the pink color I was hoping for, so we took the red sprinkles we had and melted them into the white icing— and it worked perfectly! Thanks, sprinkles, for being more than just a pretty face! 

What do you think of our cookies? Would you be interested in us sharing our butter cream recipe? Next time we were thinking of adding some lavender to our icing, so maybe we can share that!