Valentine's Day Treats for School and Work

(Source: christine Steendahl)

Are you as tired as I am of those little white heart-shaped candies with messages like “I like You” printed on them? Be a little creative this year and come up with some new Valentine’s Day treats to take to school and work. Here are a few ideas to get you started.

Valentine’s Day Cookies

Make a batch of Sugar cookies or pick up some refrigerated dough at the grocery store. Cut them out with a heart-shaped cookie cutter and bake. Frost with a glaze of powdered sugar, water and a little red food coloring, or make it really simple and buy a container of pre-made frosting. Use some frosting pens to write messages or draw on the cookies. Add a few sprinkles and you’re set! Don’t forget to invite your kids to get involved in decorating any cookies they are taking to school. They will have a great time preparing these special treats.

Valentine’s Cup Cakes

Purchase a box of devil’s food cake mix (or your favorite flavor) and prepare according to package directions. Line muffin tins with paper liners and pour enough batter in each to fill to about 1/3 full. Top with 1 tbsp of fruit preserves (strawberry works great) then add more batter until the muffin tins are approximately ¾ filled. Bake according to cake mix directions. When they are cool, dust them with powdered sugar, or frost them and sprinkle with red-hot candy hearts.

Valentine’s Day Cake

Bake any flavor cake in a heart shaped cake form. Let cook and cut in half horizontally. Mix a few drops of red food coloring into a container of whipped topping, and spread some on the bottom layer of the cake. Add the top layer and frost the entire outside of the cake. Top with fresh berries.

Chocolate Lollipops

Get some heart-shaped lollipop molds. Melt milk chocolate, dark chocolate or white chocolate (quality chocolate chips work great). Pour the melted chocolate in the mold and add a lollipop stick. Let cool until hardened. Wrap in cellophane and tie with a little bow.
Use leftover chocolate and plastic spoons to create fancy coffee stirrers. Simply dip the plastic spoons in the melted chocolate. Let cool and repeat until you reach the desired thickness.
Both of these can be decorated by drizzling different types of melted chocolate over the finished product.

Have fun this year creating some wonderful Valentines Day treats. I’m sure you will come up with a delicious treat that will be a big hit in the office or the classroom.

More Valentines Day ideas

Saying I Love You With Valentine Cookies

(Source: Michele Bery)

Valentine’s Day is a day of love – a day set aside to tell the people around us how much we care. Be it a spouse, a friend, or a parent, we show our loved ones how much they mean to us by delivering them with sentimental cards, flowers, candy, and gifts. It is the one day of the year when all out romanticism – in all its forms – is expected and accepted. When it comes to Valentine’s Day we all seem to have our own ways of celebrating. For some that means a special dinner at a restaurant. For others, it means tickets to a show. And for still others, it means a special Valentine’s Day treat that we wait for all year long. Valentine cookies are here just prior to and on February 14th – and gone the day after. So for many, buying or making these sweet treats are part of their celebration of love.

Valentine cookies come in all shapes, sizes, and flavors. You can simply head to your local grocery market where you’ll surely find cookies of all kinds packaged and ready to be bought. This is a perfect idea for those classroom parties for which you’ve been asked to supply treats. Most often these are simple sugar cookies decorated with all manner of Valentine decorations – from frosting to sprinkles. This certainly makes any parent’s job easier; you can just pick up a couple of trays of Valentine cookies and you’re on your way with cookies that will surely please every picky eater.

Of course the bakery is another place to find your Valentine cookies. Here you’re likely to find a more high-end cookie with better quality ingredients. If you are presenting the Valentine cookies as a gift – or bringing them to someone’s home – this is a great place to get them. The bakery can wrap the cookies in a tray or box them in beautiful wrapping. Either way you’re giving a lovely – and sweet – gift.

There are even online resources where you can find unique and creative Valentines Day cookies that you can box and ship to whomever you choose. Some companies will even do personalized messages on large Valentine cookies – from ‘I Love You’ to ‘Will You Marry Me?’. This is a wonderful personal gift for the cookie lover in your life.

Valentines Day cookies are another sweet way to let someone know you care. No matter what kind of cookies you choose, it is guaranteed that the person to whom you give them will be thrilled with such a gift.

More on Valentines Cookies

How To Decorate Valentine Cookies

(Source: EHow)




Step1: Decide on your cookie recipe first. Sugar and chocolate chip cookies are popular choices.

Step2: Make your valentine cookies in the shape of hearts. Use heart-shaped cookie cutters to make individual cookies, or bake the whole batch in a heart-shaped cake pan. You might also want to try using heart-shaped muffin tins.

Step3: Mix up some thick icings in pink, red, and white, and use a pastry bag to decorate the edges of the cookies with scallops, swirls and other designs. You might wish to ice all the cookies in white or pink first as a background.

Step4: Use your pastry bag or some store-bought tubes of cake icing to write Valentine messages on the cookies. "Happy Valentine's Day," "Be Mine," "I'm Sweet on You," and "Cutie" will work, depending on the size of your cookies.

Step5: Personalize the valentines cookies by writing the name of each child in a classroom on each one, for example.

Step6: Draw some hearts with icing, or place some small Valentine chocolate or conversation hearts on top of the icing.

Step7: Wait for the icing to dry.

Step8: Package your valentines cookies in small, heart-covered cellophane party favor bags, and tie a piece of lace or pink or red ribbon around the neck of the bag. You can also use clear sandwich bags decorated with stickers.