'Glass' Heart Valentine's Day Cookies!

I have a love affair with Valentine’s Day. It’s when I received my first kiss from a boy named Kenny Watkins. In second grade, while we were passing out Valentine’s among the decorated shoe boxes adorned with paper doilies and hearts, Kenny puckered up and planted one on my right cheek. Totally surprised but secretly pleased due to my reciprocal crush, I did what any self–respecting 7-year-old girl would have done—I promptly walked up to my teacher, Mrs. Fedor, and tattled on him. What would be deemed as terribly un-PC today and probable cause for expulsion for the kissing bandit, she smiled and said, "What a lucky girl you are!"

Even at that age I remember not expecting that particular answer since it would have been so much more fun to have gotten him into trouble. Walking back to my desk I noticed Kenny was already back at his, which was right next to mine.  He sat there with the biggest, most beautiful smile. Mrs. Fedor was right. I was a lucky girl.

Pretty Valentine cookies always remind me of the lacy Valentines of grade school, and of course, Kenny.

The glass heart cookies are made by crushing hard red candies into a powder, placing the candy powder inside a cut-out in the dough and baking as you normally would. (see photos)

Steps To Make The Candy Glass:

• You'll need red cinnamon candies (red hots), red lollipops or Life Savors. Any hard candy that is red.
• Crush the candy to a powder. I use a Cuisinart Mini Mate Chopper. It does a fabulous job in a few pulses. (see photo). You can also place the candies in a strong baggie-type bag and crush them with a hammer. The finer the candies are pulverized, the better they will melt evenly.
• Spoon the candy powder into the cutout space made in your cookie dough from a smaller heart cutter. Fill in the entire area. (see photo)

Cookie Tips:

• My sugar cookie recipe bakes at 375 which is hot enough to melt the candy during baking time. I specifically don't use a lower temp setting (350) to bake them. The temperature has to be hot enough to melt the candy before the cookies burn. This has been my experience.  Yours might differ.
• I use a Silpat baking sheet liner on my cookie pans so the cookies lift right off after they have finished baking and cooled. Parchment paper will also work if you line your baking sheets with it.
• The sugar “glass” will be hot. Do not touch it until it has cooled. Let the cookies firm up on the baking sheet before removing them.
• Finish decorating with royal or glaze icing.

Happy Valentine’s Day! <3