Chocolate Valentine's Day Cookies Decorated Two Ways

It's getting late
Anticipation
And if we talk
Communication
And then you'll know
I ache for you

                                                                                                 
                                                                                           Ache for You - Ben Lee

The above lyrics come from one of my favourite songs by Ben Lee, Ache for You, from the excellent album Awake Is the New Sleep.  This song perfectly sums up longing and desire for someone - it can be illogical and confusing, but hopeful and exciting at the same time.  

Valentine's Day is an opportunity for those who are already loved up to confirm those feelings to their partner.  It is also an opportunity to reach out to someone you long for and express your feelings for them in the hope that those feelings are returned.

I am not a fan of all the commercialisation around "V Day", as it is known, but I am a sucker for all the red and white and pink and hearts symbolism.  It is a perfect chance for me to indulge my fondness for this symbolism in sweet form.

This year, I made chocolate cookies and decorated them in two different ways.  One method was something I had tried before, the other was entirely new to me.

I made Lila Loa's End-All for Chocolate Roll Out Cookies, which I love because you don't have to chill the dough before rolling and baking.  Unfortunately, I did have to do a bit of chilling of the dough because the rather hot and humid day on which I made them did me no favours.  I just cut out round shapes because that shape was the easiest to use with my decorating tools of choice.

First up, I marbled some ready-to-roll fondant in a pink and white colour combination, and embossed it with the cutest ever "Bee Mine" embosser from Custom Cookie Cutters.  I think they turned out really cute.  I had marbled fondant and used an embosser before.

The next technique I used was to decorate the fondant using an airbrush with various heart-shaped Wilton stencils (I picked up the stencils for just $2 on a throw-out at the Cake Bakes and Sweets Show some time in the distant past, and this is the first time I have used them):

My airbrush is a Cookie Countess model from Miss Biscuit (bought on sale earlier in the year), and I used Cookie Countess's Preppy Pink airbrush colour for the designs. I had wanted to try airbrushing for a while, and this YouTube video made it easy for me to learn how to use the airbrush. The biggest lesson that I learned is that less is more when it comes to using the colour with stencils, as it minimises colour bleeding, and the colour darkens up afterwards so too much colour may lead to an undesirable result.  I also learned the value of putting down paper towel all over the benchtop that you are airbrushing on to avoid undesirable mess.

All of the cookies are so cute.  I could have piped a heart shaped edging around each cookie to hide the chocolate edges peeping out of the fondant, but as I was making these cookies just for fun and not to sell or for anyone in particular, I just left them as is.

I could not let the opportunity pass to show off my new Quetzy Valentine's Day brooches:

I purchased the Love Galah, but the little heart brooch was a gift with my purchase.  It made me smile.

Wishing all of my readers a fabulous V Day!