Valentine Sweets & Treats < 3

There was plenty of Valentines baking and treat making over the week!

I'm pretty wiped out from all the Love Day Week events going on with my little ones.

Nonetheless, we made some yummy sweets and treats!

I make two different kinds of sugar cookies with butter or switch it for coconut oil.

The Fish Fam prefers the coconut sugar cookies.

Recipe for Coconut Sugar Cookies here and for the butter sugar cookies this recipe.

I made these heart shaped fruit pizzas for my youngest's Vday Party.

Yummy! Just make your sugar cookie, spread cool whip over the top, and then add your favorite sliced fruits. <3

These were for the older kids school teachers.

I used heart shaped silicone cupcake molders.

Then I put the Vday sprinkles and M&M's at the bottom. Then poured the melted chocolate on top. Which, I had to do some research on it is important to use the right type of chocolate to melt and use. There is a big difference that will give you very different results. Read here!

Homemade Fruit Snacks!

By Wellness Mama

Recipe here.

My kids sure loved these. Once you have all the right ingredients they are easy to make, but let me tell you it does take some practice to get it right. Mine failed the first time because come to find out I used fresh pineapple juice and just like she said it won't thicken. So I made them into popsicles. But, the second time they formed using pineapple juice from a can. Finally, but I still have much room for improvement.

We got some pretty sweet molds at amazon...heart shaped, dinos, and legos.

(I'll make a more detail post about this sometime soon.)

Valentine Coconut Sugar Cookies

These Sugar Cookies and frosting have the butter substituted with Organic Extra-Virgin Coconut Oil. Right now with the cold weather, the coconut oil is pretty solid and I needed it to be smooth and creamy. To do that I ran a glass bowl under hot hot water, scooped the coconut oil out with an ice cream scooper, and dropped it into the bowl. Once it hits the bowl it starts to melt. I continue to heat up the oil by mashing it with a rubber spatula until it's nice and creamy. If that's not quite doing it then I also heat it up just a few seconds at a time in the microwave (covered with a plate on top). You don't want it to be liquid, so you need to do it nice and slow until you can get it soft and creamy.

 I used this recipe, altered a little....

1 1/2 cups Organic Extra-Virgin Coconut Oil

2 cups Organic Sugar (I added a little less than 2 cups)

4 Organic Eggs

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

5 cups Organic Unbleached White Flour

2 tsp Baking Powder (Rumford Aluminum/GMO Free)

1 tsp Sea Salt

"In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cover, and chill dough for at least one hour (or overnight). 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Roll out dough on floured surface 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick. Cut into shapes with any cookie cutter. Place cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets. 

Bake 6 to 8 minutes in preheated oven. Cool completely." (I had to bake them longer abt 9mins)

 Here's the frosting recipe I used too....

1/4 cup Unrefined (Virgin) Coconut Oil
16 oz Powdered Sugar
4-6 tablespoons Coconut, Soy, or Almond milk
1 teaspoon Vanilla

This is much easier with a hand blender, but you can definitely do it with a whisk - and build some muscles! It's also best if you can measure out the powdered sugar with a scale. If you don't have one, feel free to just use two cups of powdered sugar and a little less soy milk. :)

steps:

1. "cream" the coconut oil until it breaks up and gets nice and smooth
2. add in 1/4 of the powdered sugar, the vanilla and 2 tablespoons of soy milk
3. mix together until nice and smooth
4. keep adding powdered sugar along with tablespoons of soy milk as needed until everything is combined - you don't want any clumps of powdered sugar or coconut oil.
5. frost everything in the vicinity

This frosting melts pretty easily, so make sure whatever you put it on is nice and cool. It should be enough to cover one 9x13 sheet cake.

*I usually make my own organic powdered sugar in my dry-grains blender. I also used Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk. 

We had fun delivering these yummy cookies to daddy, teachers, and friends!