Shekh ma shieraki anni -- My Sun and Stars

Valentine's Day Cookies

 If there was such a thing, here are Daenerys Targaryen’s Valentine’s Day cookies for Khal Drogo. Sun and stars for her sun and stars. 

(Yes, I am counting the days until Season 3 of The Game of Thrones begins, March 31.   Game of Thrones -- Chaos   )

Finding the perfect cookie

I decided to make some cookies for Valentine’s day (the Christmas baking has now all been consumed). I wanted something with orange flavour – just the mood I was in. I wanted it to have butter, orange peel or zest and orange juice. So I scoured the internet and I found this recipe. I was a little skeptical because I’ve been trying different sugar cookie recipes for years and never liked any.

When my kids were in middle school we instituted a Christmas baking day. Turns out there is always a PD day close to Christmas (usually sometime in mid to late November) so that was the day. Their friends could come over and kitchen mayhem ensued. The kids always enjoyed decorating cookies but I never could find a good recipe – either the dough was too hard to work with or it just didn’t taste good.

The Recipe

 Diana's Desserts Holiday Sugar Cookies
 
I like this recipe. It makes a nice soft puffy cookie. (My daughter thinks they are like muffins.) I don’t really think it’s a sugar cookie since they are not very sweet – the sugar to flour ratio should have been my first clue! Of course, icing will remedy that. I put in the zest of a whole orange; I think you could use more. Instead of vanilla I squeezed the juice out of half of the orange which was more than a teaspoon but it wasn’t a problem. Be very careful baking, you just want the very bottom edge to be brown.

For the icing I used butter and cream cheese and the juice from the other half of the orange. It is okay. I am still looking for the perfect icing for decorating cookies. I dipped some in melted chocolate.  This is my daughter's area of expertise and she had to go back to school so I had to do it myself.  I am happy with the results.

This made a ton of cookies so I have packaged up a whole bunch for this weekend, Family Day long weekend, which we are spending at Mont Tremblant ski resort.

Have a Happy Valentine's Day!