Valentine’s Day is probably one of my favorite holidays. Maybe it’s because of all the girlie colors and hearts and flowers, or because of the shallow romance courtesy of department stores, but I just can’t help but like it. Of course, I’m sure that I resented the holiday when I was single or forlorn over someone that wouldn’t “Be Mine”. That’s probably a given. Now Valentine’s Day offers me an excuse to get into the kitchen and try to make something that has equal parts romance and flour and KitchenAid mixer.

This year I was (sort of) inspired to make sugar cookies because of the one thing that I do dislike about Valentine’s Day – conversation hearts. While they are cute, they taste pretty, well, nasty. I apologize if you enjoy the taste of conversation hearts, but I’d be happy without them or with a version that tasted more like chocolate than chalk. Even though my cookies have nothing conversational about them, I somehow thought that something sugary in the shape of a heart would be a nice substitute to those candies.

This isn’t my recipe, but I went with a recipe that appears to work and be popular among us vegans which is always a good sign when I set out to make a recipe I’ve not made before.

Vegan Sugar Cookies
This recipe was taken from www.johnandkristie.com. This makes about 36 cookies.

• 1 cup vegan butter, like Earth Balance or Soy Garden
• 3 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 cup vegan white sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 whole egg replacements (Ener-G)
• 1/4 cup Tofutti cream cheese
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

In a large bowl, cream together the margarine and sugar.

Add or stir in the egg replacements and vanilla. Gradually add the flour, baking powder and tofu cream cheese.

You may have to use your hands at this point to finish the mixing. Form the dough into a long loaf, or divide in half and press into two flat rounds, and wrap in cellophane. Refrigerate for a couple hours.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease the cookie sheets, use a non-stick foil or parchment paper.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness.

Cut into desired shapes with cookie cutters.

Place about 1 inch apart cookie on sheets.

Bake for 12 to 14 minutes in the preheated oven, until bottoms and edges just start to get light brown. Remove from baking sheet and cool on wire racks. Store in an airtight container.

Icing
This is also taken from www.johnandkristie.com. Each batch is enough to easily coat 24 cookies.

• 2 cups confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon of almond extract (I used vanilla extract instead)
• 6-8 teaspoons of soy milk or another non-dairy milk
• Assorted food coloring
• 4 teaspoons of light corn syrup (I used agave nectar)

In medium bowl, stir together confectioners’ sugar and soy milk until smooth.

Beat in corn syrup (or agave) and almond extract (or vanilla extract) until icing is smooth and glossy. If icing is too thick, add more corn syrup/agave.

Add food coloring to desired intensity. To make pink I used probably 2 or 3 drops of red, and to make purple I used about 5 drops of red and one drop of blue.

Dip cookies and allow to dry. You can dry them overnight or for a couple of hours before storing.

This recipe made A LOT of cookies. Maybe I rolled the dough out more thinly than I should have, but I still have quite a few cookies leftover. This last weekend seemed to be Samantha’s Sugar Festival of 2009, so I opted to take in the rest of the presentable cookies to work. My co-workers ate and enjoyed them, and I confess I had four…or five. They were within arms reach, okay?! Anyway, it’s always rewarding to see non-vegan people eat the vegan stuff (of course, I didn’t spread the word they were vegan) and say that it’s good.

What about you? Do you love or hate Valentine’s Day? If it’s the latter, I still recommend making these cookies, but instead of a heart I’d use a random cookie cutter shape like a dinosaur or maybe a train or flag. I bought a whole set of cookie cutters just to get a heart cookie cutter (really, I have wanted a full set, so it wasn’t just so I could have a heart shaped cutter), and believe me when I say that some of this batch turned into cats and hands. I just couldn’t help myself with the randomness.