Puppy Love Sugar Cookies

Welcome to Day 3 of my Valentine sugar cookie extravaganza! Monday's Cinnamon Imperial Cookies were sweet and spicy, and yesterday's Strawberry Malt Cookies were a tasty tribute to the soda shops of yesteryear, but today's cookies, well, they're just plain cute.

Of all the Valentine-themed cookies I made for this week, these were the most fun. I even had a great time photographing them - and, of course, eating them was a pleasure, too (although I made Matt eat most of the puppy ones - they were just too adorable!). I hadn't originally intended to make these little pups, but I came across the cookie cutter as I was looking for the heart-shaped one (that I didn't have) and decided he was just too lovely not to use.

These cookies use the same sugar cookie dough (because why mess with perfection?) but this time, the frosting is my favorite Better Than Royal Icing. I love this stuff because it sets like Royal Icing (well, not quite as hard) but it's much, much easier to use, and much tastier, too.

The little white Westies are a nod to the dogs Matt had as a child, but they also make a cute Valentine couple when paired with a handsome black Scottie. I 'textured' the icing with the tip of a knife to get the furry look, but the red heart cookies show just how smooth this icing can be. It's a perfect pairing for my favorite sugar cookies - just like Scotties and Westies.

Best Ever Sugar Cookies
Give my fool-proof sugar cookie recipe a try here.

A few notes: To get my pups to face each other, I cut out all of them with the same cookie cutter and then flipped half of them before baking (if your cookie cutter leaves jagged edges on the underside, you'll want to smooth these down with your finger first). The inset hearts were created easily by pressing a smaller heart cookie cutter onto the larger heart-shaped cookie before baking. Then all I had to do was use the icing to color within the lines. Simple!

Better Than Royal Icing
You can find my favorite decorators frosting recipe here.

A few notes: I've had some questions about substitutions for this recipe, so I just wanted to note that you can substitute dark corn syrup or golden syrup - made from cane sugar - for the light corn syrup. Be aware, however, that this should only be done if you plan on coloring the frosting, since it won't give you the true white color needed for your Westies.

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