Valentine’s Day Sugar Cookies

Heat oven to 350°F. Line a few cookie sheets.

Place butter and sugar in a large mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer until well combined. Then add the egg and vanilla and beat just until incorporated.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt and spices in a separate bowl, then gradually add to the butter mixture and mix on low speed until combined into a scraggly dough.

Remove dough from the bowl and place it on a clean, lightly floured surface. Push it together with your hands a few times until it forms a smooth dough – do not knead or overwork or cookies will be tough! Divide the dough in half and roll out each half on a lightly floured work surface to 1/4 inch thickness.

Cut out biscuits with a biscuit cutter, re-rolling any scraps of dough to cut out more. Place similarly sized biscuits on the same trays, 2 inches apart to allow for even baking.

Bake one sheet of cookies at a time in the hot oven for 8-12 minutes (8 minutes for small cookies, 10 minutes for medium cookies, 12 minutes for large cookies), or until they’re lightly golden underneath and feel dry and delicate when lightly touching the top.

Cool the cookies on the cookie sheet for 5 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack to cool completely.

To ice the cookies, stir all ingredients for the icing together and color as desired (I divided the icing into 3 and colored one dark pink, one light pink and left one white). Ice the biscuits as you like, and decorate with sprinkles while the icing is wet, if you want. Let them dry for a good few hours before packing them up!