Wild About You - Valentine's Cookies

     Before making this set of cookies I hadn't worked very much with piecing cookie shapes together before I baked them.  But now I have!   There's actually nothing to it and you get so many more things to do with your cutters!

    My projects tend to grow out of my control and get much bigger than I had planned.  In truth I just wanted to make pink flamingos and didn't have a flamingo cutter.  Story of my life.

   I don't know how all these other guys got here.  They just sort of came stampeding in when I opened the door.










  The good thing about Valentine's Day, for making cookies anyway, is that you only need one cookie cutter shape. This is a nice little set from Wilton of nesting hearts and I used them to make all my jungle cookies! 

   Okay right off, that's a lie. I used another cutter for the flamingo too.  I liked how this heart-and-arrow cutter give a little place for her feet. 

You could use just the nesting heart cutters though, so it still counts! 

Double the flamingo love!

and hippos;

And kissy fishes! - These are probably the most fragile of the group because the join between the pieces is such a small area.  I made sure to let them cool before I handled them so I didn't have any problems with breakage, but using them as cookie favors or the like would probably not work.  Look how cute they are though!

 
Some tips I learned for piecing cookie shapes together:

• Cut the dough shapes separately.  Then cut one shape out of the other and piece them together. 
• Pick the cut that gives you the most surface area between shapes. For example;
• Let your cookies cool completely before moving them around.  They're very soft and tender when they are warm.
• A dough that spreads a little is probably a good thing here so the pieces will join more as they bake.  All those tips you learned to stop cookie spread, yeah forget that.

There is more to come!  Stay tuned.