Pizza My Heart Cookie Valentine’s Day Treat
Sometimes things just fall into place so nicely and so neatly that you simply must believe in fate. Perhaps thinking that my newest blog post idea being “fated” is a bit silly but when I went to the store the other day and saw this little girl’s too cute shirt that said “have a pizza my heart” and then I saw a heart shaped cookie pan just a few steps over in the Valentine’s Day aisle, well, things just fell into place so easily!
And I have to tell you, I’m so, so happy with this pizza shaped cookie even though it didn’t work out quite as easily as I had envisioned it. Trying to work up how to make a cookie pizza in my head while pushing my cart around I devised a plan, deemed it fool proof and purchased the items. But when I actually put all of the pieces together, well, it didn’t work out so well.
I wanted a cookie that actually looked like a pizza and so that meant a healthy topping of “melty cheese”. My first idea, which wound up getting scraped off, was to grate white chocolate very finely and then melt it on top of the cookie. But the thing is while the chocolate melted it didn’t puddle or pool or anything, but stayed right where it was in clumps. It was the darnedest thing! But luckily I was able to scrape “Plan A” right off of that cookie and quickly devise a “Plan B” though, the second option is without Fruit Roll Up pepperonis.
But know you can do that, too! My pizza is straight up CHEESE but you cal also cut circles out of red Fruit Roll Ups to make a super cute topping.
Gah! Wouldn’t that have been so cute? And I sat there and cut a bunch of circles out of only half of a bunch of Fruit Roll Ups for nothing!
Yep, it turned out out that half of each roll I got was actually yellow but at least I got an unexpected, fruity snack! (I really should have realized that things weren’t going to go quite according to plan pretty early on 🙂
Want to see how to rock out Plan B for the most perfectly adorable, musically inspired, Take Another Little Pizza My Heart Valentine’s Day Cookie? Well I’ll show you how, but first, quick trivia tidbit, did you know that Piece of My Heart, though made popular by Janis Joplin, was originally sung by Aretha Franklin’s older sister Erma Franklin? The more you know… 🙂
For this Valentine’s Day Recipe you will need:
- Wilton heart shaped cookie pan (this perfectly fits one roll from the grocery section or you can use your own recipe)
- Sugar cookie dough
- Red frosting
- White frosting
- Icing piping bag
First thing’s first, this pan is pretty awesome. It perfectly fits a roll of cookie dough from the refrigerated section so you can knock this cutie cookie in no time flat OR you can go homemade and whip up your favorite cookie dough recipe. I went sugar cookie for the most “realistic pizza” crust along the edges 🙂
If you’re having a hard time getting your dough nice and smooth in the pan, use a cold spoon and dip it in water frequently. The cold and wet backside of a spoon will level the dough out while pressing it in a really smooth surface.
Bake according to recipe directions. Allow to cool about 10 minutes and then turn your cookie out onto a wire rack to finish cooling.
Though no promises that during baking it won’t bake up with a mind of its own 🙂 Now even though my cookie decided to crack up on me a bit, it still looks gangbusters all dolled up. So if your cookie is less than perfect, no sweat!
Quick tip… have you ever tried to make RED frosting? Not pink, but red? Well I wind up using TONS of food coloring to cross over from pink to red and it can actually make the icing taste a little gross. I was pretty stoked to find this tub of red frosting that tastes really good and, YAY, it’s easy because you just use it right out of the tub! Oh, and I’ve linked so you can see details on this particular tub but buy it at your grocery store for, literally, a fraction of the price. (EGADS!)
Let’s sauce this sucker up with your red frosting. Keep a half to one inch all around the cookie un-frosted to be the “pizza crust”.
Fill a large-ish piping bag with about half (maybe a little more) of a can of white frosting. Don’t snip the bottom just yet… Place your bag in a cup in the microwave and zap it for about 10-30 seconds until your frosting is liquid and gooey. You might need to knead the bag to make sure all frosting is the same consistency. If it’s super liquid after melting, let it set back up for a little bit. Try it on a scrap of paper towel, or something, and if it puddles it’s perfect but if it spread out tons and tons it’s needs to sit a bit.
Over the top of your red frosting squeeze your piping bag to cover most, but not all of the red icing. You know how pizzas always have some sauce peeking through? That’s what you’re going for.
If you want to add toppings, you can do that now. Sort of shove them into the frosting a bit so that they get a little “cheesy” like they would on a real pizza! Now I kind of blanked on topping ideas, so feel free to share your ideas in the comments!
I suppose that normally my favorite pizza is straight up cheese anyway, so all’s well that ends well. Now go on. Take another little pizza my heart, will you? 🙂
