Happy Pig Snout Day

I thought I would have a tray of delicate pink heart cookies for this Valentine's Day. They would be pretty little gems , perfect with a cup of tea.Was I wrong.What I wound up with was seventy -something pig snouts. (cute in their own way).Blame it on my Wilton Cookie Press.

 It all started with looking at my Wilton Cookie press and realizing I've never used it in the whole year I have it.

It looked like it could be fun. This is what it is, a plastic barrel that is filled with a very gummy kind of dough. You put those little circular discs in the ring and attach everything. Simple right? Yeah.

I made the dough first, using the Wilton spritz cookie recipe. For an easy dough , it was hard to make.

It starts out with 

four cups of flour sifted with 1 teaspoon of baking powder.

Then it's mixing butter  and you have to use butter NOT margarine.

It's then mixing it with one egg,  one cup of sugar and two tablespoons of of milk.

It calls for both vanilla and almond extract. I didn't have the second so I subbed in more vanilla for the almond. The butter is cut in pieces and then basically riced with an electric mixer.

The flour and baking powder blend is added to this. Since it was for Valentine's Day I add two scant drops of red food coloring.

This was a gooey pasty dough. It was impossible to load into the cookie press.(which by the way doesn''t come with instructions)I had to watch videos on how to do it.

This was the first try.

It looks like wads of chewed bubble gum.

then the second try

These actually came out OK and the first taken when done. Mostly they looked like this. Each tray was baked for ten minutes at 350 degrees F.

Pig snouts, pile upon pile of pig snouts.

If you want a true Valentine's Day cookie go to Melissa Clark's A Good Appetite in yesterday's New York Times Food section. She has actual heart shaped chocolate shortbread dipped in more chocolate and dusted with raspberry powder. I don't recommend this recipe or the cookie press. Sorry, Wilton. (It was also a pain to clean too)

Anyway, Happy Pig Snout Day , everyone. Kiss the snout of your heart.