As this Valentines season drew close, I really wanted to incorporate texture into the cookie dough before baking... to take advantage of that beautiful 3D look. Once you've rolled it into the dough and baked it, all you have to do is dust it to emphasize the impressions.

The most important part of this process is rolling the texture into the dough before baking. Here's a video (of a different project) showing how to place the texture mat face down on the dough and use the pressure of the rolling pin to make the impressions into the dough before baking it. The relevant part is at the very beginning of the video.

Once the cookies are baked and cooled, brush food coloring or dust over the surface to bring out all the details. For these Valentine cookies, I used Americolor Bright White gel for some and gold dust mixed with vodka for others.

After completing the dusting of the textures, embellish the cookies with layered patterns, mini cookies, or cut-out edible clay pieces.

The background texture really makes these cookies "pop". 

❤️