Heart Shaped Treats

Both of the recipes I'm talking about today are ones that I've already shared but I wanted to show you how I turned them into Valentine treats! I took my go to sugar cookie recipe (you can find it HERE) and turned them into hearts. I also took my favorite cinnamon bun recipe (you can find it HERE) and turned them into hearts! So many hearts coming out of my kitchen this week!

For the heart shaped sugar cookies, I made two batches of sugar cookie dough. I used five different sized heart cookie cutters to cut out the dough. To decorate the cookies, I used different variations of pink and red sprinkles that I had on hand. And I ended up with about 80 cookies!

80 is a lot - way too much for my little family. But these cookies were baked with the intention of giving away all week. I store them in a air tight container and pack some up whenever I'm going to be seeing someone that I want to give cookies too - we've been giving them to friends, teachers, coaches... and we will continue to do so all week long. I think it is important to show appreciation year round, but I try to do something a little extra special around Valentine's Day!

So the cookies are to give away but I also made something special for my family to enjoy...

Heart-shaped cinnamon buns!! These are darling and just as easy to put together as normal cinnamon buns. You can find the recipe I use HERE and this is what I did...

Everything started off normal - mix the dry and wet ingredients separately, then mix them together and knead them into a floured surface. Roll out the kneaded dough, brush melted butter over it, sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the top of the butter. Now here is where things get a little funky:

I used a pizza cutter to cut my dough lengthwise into nine equal parts. You could easily use a butter knife, i just love any excuse to use a pizza cutter! :)

Then, I rolled the dough from both end until the rolls met in the middle.

Pick up the rolled dough and put it down on its side into a buttered glass 9x9 baking dish. You will need to pinch the bottom of the heart a bit to have it look a little more like a heart.

And that's it! Follow the previous rising and baking instructions and you'll have heart shaped cinnamon buns!!

Come back tomorrow - I'll be talking all about having pie for breakfast! So fun!!