Love In A Cookie Cup Recipes

Steps:

• Line mini cupcake pan with cupcake liners.
• Melt the chocolate and Crisco together.
• Add cayenne pepper and mix well.
• With a small pastry brush, brush the insides of the cupcake liners with the chocolate. Make sure you cover the bottom and side well. Set aside to harden.
• After chocolate is set, pull cups out and use the pan for your cookies.
• Prepare the cookie dough by adding dough ingredients to a bowl. Mix on low for 10 seconds. Then turn the mixer to medium speed and mix for 20 to 30 seconds.
• Fill the pan with liners again and spray inside of liners lightly with vegetable oil.
• Put one tablespoon of cookie dough in each cup.
• Bake at 350F for 15 minutes.
• As soon as cookies come out of the oven, use the back of a tablespoon measuring spoon to press down firmly into the center of cookies to make a well.
• Let cool completely.
• Melt butter and peanut butter together. Mix well.
• Add powdered sugar.
• When cookies are completely cooled, peel liner from cookies and set the cookies into the chocolate cups.
• Press about 1/2 tablespoon of peanut butter mixture inside well of the cookies. Do not overfill.
• Using a small pastry brush, again brush the tops of the cookie cups with more chocolate so that it's completely enclosed. Put in the freezer for 2 hours.
• Take out and remove the liner from the bottom of chocolate cups. Enjoy.
• NOTE: These are so incredibly delicious. You won't be able to eat just one. When working with dipping chocolate I use a candle warmer. It works incredibly wonderful. It will never burn your chocolate or cause it to seize up at all. Don't have to use a stove or a microwave. Just set a bowl over the surface of the candle warmer and add what you want and stir off and on till completely melted. Takes maybe 3 to 4 minutes depending on how much you are wanting to melt. Stays at the perfect temp the whole while you are working with it. Make the peanut butter filling with the warmer also. It's amazing.

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees C). Lightly spray a 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray.
• Divide dough into sixteen 2-tablespoon portions. Place 12 portions into the prepared muffin tin and press into the bottom and about halfway up each cup. Reserve remaining 4 portions of dough.
• Bake in the preheated oven for 9 minutes. Remove from the oven and lightly press down in the center with the large end of a wooden spoon or a shot glass to form a cup shape. Return to oven and bake until golden brown, 6 to 8 minutes more. Remove from the oven and press the center down gently as before. Allow to cool completely in the pan, about 15 minutes, before removing with a small offset spatula or knife.
• Repeat process with remaining 4 cookie dough portions.

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease 2 mini muffin pans.
• Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl.
• Combine butter, white sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla extract in a large bowl; beat with an electric mixer until creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in the flour mixture. Stir in chocolate chips.
• Drop rounded tablespoons of the dough into the prepared mini muffin cups.
• Bake in the preheated oven until edges are light golden brown, 9 to 12 minutes. Cool before removing from the pans.
• Meanwhile, beat shortening, butter, and vanilla extract together with an electric mixer in a mixing bowl. Beat in confectioners' sugar gradually, 1 cup at a time. Beat in milk until icing is smooth. Add a little more milk if icing is still dry.
• Fill the center of each cooled cookie cup with icing.

Steps:

• For the cookie dough: In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the butter and granulated sugar together until just incorporated. Add the egg and vanilla extract. Mix again on low speed, stopping to scrape down the sides of the bowl intermittently.
• Add the flour and salt. Mix on low speed until a dough is formed and there are no longer streaks of butter in the mixing bowl. The dough will be thick and should not be sticky.
• Cover two baking sheets with parchment paper.
• Divide the dough in half, place one half on a lightly floured work surface and roll to a thickness of slightly greater than 1/4 inch. Cut out a total of 15 cookies using a 4-inch rectangular cutter. Put 7 on one baking sheet and 8 on the other. Cut out the centers from 5 of the cookies using a 2-inch rectangular cookie cutter. Chill the cut-outs for 20 minutes. Wrap the remaining dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use.
• Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
• Bake the cookies for 12 to 15 minutes or until golden brown around the edges. Remove the cookies to a wire rack to cool completely. Let the baking sheets cool, then re-line them with parchment. Repeat the rolling, cutting, chilling and baking with the remaining dough half, for a total of 30 cookies, 10 with cut-out centers.
• For the royal icing: In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, mix the confectioners' sugar and meringue powder on low speed until combined. Add the water and beat on medium-high speed until very stiff peaks form, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the lemon extract and beat on low speed until combined. Place 1/4 cup of icing into each of three bowls. Cover the remaining icing in the mixer bowl with a damp paper towel to prevent drying. Tint one bowl of icing with red, one with pink and one with black (leave the icing in the mixer bowl white). Add drops of water to all 4 bowls to thin the icing to flood consistency. (Check the consistency by dragging a spoon through the center of each icing; when the icing is perfect flood consistency, the indentation should completely disappear in 10 seconds. Thin with more water, or thicken with additional confections' sugar as needed.) Transfer each color of icing to a separate piping bag or decorator squeeze bottle.
• Cut a sheet of parchment paper into 10 small strips, each about 4 inches by 2 inches. Write sentiments of love on one side of each strip, such as "Love you more than cookies!" and "You're Sweet!"
• Place 10 whole rectangular cookies on a work surface covered with parchment paper. Pipe white royal icing around the outer top edge of each cookie. Place a cookie with a hollow center on top of each iced cookie. Fill each with 1 tablespoon confetti heart sprinkles. Pipe white royal icing around the outer top edges of the hollow cookies. Fold the love notes so the ink side is on the inside of the fold and will not touch the cookies. Insert a folded love note into each hollow cookie and top with a whole cookie.
• Pipe a line of white royal icing around the outer top edges of the cookies and flood the inside so that icing completely covers the top of the cookies. If there are gaps in the icing, use a toothpick to push the icing into the gaps so they are filled. Let the iced cookies stand until completely smooth and dry, about 3 hours.
• When the icing is dry, use the white royal icing to pipe a triangular envelope flap on half (five) of the cookies. Use a toothpick to scrape away the point of each triangle to make room for the seal decoration. Use the red royal icing to pipe a small seal in the middle of each envelope. Pipe white royal icing lines down from both sides of the envelope flaps to the bottom corners of the cookies to create envelope folds. Use the pink royal icing to pipe several small hearts on the envelopes. Use the food color marker to draw a perforated line across the center of the cookies with "open here" instructions.
• On the remaining cookies, pipe three equal-sized horizontal lines using black royal icing on the front centers of the cookies for address lines. Use the red royal icing to make a heart in the upper right-hand corner of the cookies for a postage stamp. Use the black food color marker to draw wavy lines to the left of the stamps. Further embellish the cookies with X's and O's in the top left corner, and add the name of the recipients to the top address line. Draw half-circle postage marks on the sides of the cookies using the food color marker or leftover black royal icing.
• Let the cookies stand until set, about 3 hours. Package the cookies in cellophane bags tied with baker's twine. If necessary, include opening instructions so the recipient will be aware of the messages inside the cookies.

Steps:

• Cut cookie dough in half (save 1 portion for another use). With floured hands, press about 1 tablespoon of dough onto the bottom and up the sides of 12 ungreased miniature muffin cups. Bake at 350° until lightly browned, 8-10 minutes. , Using the end of a wooden spoon handle, reshape the puffed cookie cups. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack to cool completely., In a small bowl, beat the cream cheese, butter and vanilla until smooth. Gradually beat in confectioners' sugar. Spoon into cookie cups. Store in the refrigerator.