Thursday, February 9, 2012

Class 1 - Gift Tags

A great day--Valentine Shortbread Cookies (recipe to follow), coffee and tea, gift tags of all sorts, sizes and shapes, and lots of laughter!


Rolled Refrigerator Shortbread Cookie Recipe:
1 lb. butter
1 c. white sugar
4 1/2 c. flour
1/2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla
1/2 c. colored sugar (optional)

Cut cold butter into1-inch slices. Place all ingredients in large mixer and mix on slow. The dough will first go through a stage of "cornmeal" consistency. After a few minutes when the dough just begins to stick together, stop the mixer, take out the dough and form two, hard-packed logs, about 2 inches in diameter. Logs may be left round or shaped into a Valentine shape with the blunt end of a long knife. (The Valentine shape takes some doing as the dough is quite hard.)  Spread the colored sugar out the length of the logs, and roll the logs into the sugar. Repeat this until you have the desired sugar coverage. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate over night or for at least 4-6 hours.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Take our chilled dough and cut into 1/2-inch slices and place on cookie sheet. Bake approx. 12 minutes, just until cookies barely start to brown.  Let cookies sit on cookies sheet about 3-4 minutes before placing on a cookie rack.

These make a very tender, buttery shortbread, that even my daughter said were the best shortbread cookies she had ever tasted--and she is a professional chef!


Valentine gift tags . . . .
 





Decoupage, stamped gift tags . . 



And more tags. . .

































So inspired by gift tag-making, Natalie's school valentines were also made from paint chip gift tags!