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These shortbread heart cookies are easy to make, with minimal ingredients and the perfect Valentine’s Day cookie-cutter cookie recipe.
While you are at it, check out some of my other Valentine’s Day dessert favorites: Valentine’s Day fudge, heart-shaped stained glass cookies, and Valentines cake mix cookies.
Table of Contents
Valentine Heart Cookies
Valentine’s Day is right around the corner, so why not whip up a batch of these gorgeous heart-shaped shortbread cookies? Decorate with royal icing and festive sprinkles or serve your Valentine’s shortbread cookies plain. The choice is yours!
Wrap in cellophane baggies to give to loved ones, pack one in your child’s lunch, or enjoy as a Valentine treat to nibble on during the week.
Kid-friendly Valentine’s Day Cookie Recipe
You can even let your kids toss on an apron and help decorate these heart-shaped Valentine’s day cookies! The kids will have fun adding the icing, sprinkles, candies, etc.
This is a fun way for children to learn to bake, have fun making special cookies for loved ones, and enjoy the Valentine’s Day season.
What is the difference between a sugar cookie and a shortbread cookie?
Sugar cookies tend to contain eggs as an ingredient, where shortbread cookies do not. Shortbread cookies also are a bit more buttery in texture and can crumble more than a traditional cookie-cut sugar cooker would.
Here are the ingredients needed for these decorated valentine heart cookies. If you want to serve them plain, you can skip the last two ingredients.
Butter
Granulated Sugar
All-Purpose Flour
Vanilla Extract
Royal Icing and Sprinkles (optional)
Red food coloring (optional)
How to Make Heart-Shaped Cookies
Mix Dough | Follow the simple directions in the step-by-step recipe card below to make this simple shortbread cookie dough.
Chill| Pop the dough in the freezer to chill and firm up a bit so you can roll it out nicely. 15-20 minutes is all that is needed for chilling.
Roll & Cut Out | Use a rolling pin to roll out your dough and a cookie cutter to cut into hearts.
Bake | Bake as directed, making sure to not overbake or it will make your cookies pretty dry. Allow the cookies to fully cool on a baking rack before decorating.
Best Icing To Use For Shortbread Cookies
You can use a royal icing you buy or make. Or if you want a softer style frosting any whipped style frosting can be spread on the cookies. The only thing about that is it won’t be as clean looking as a royal icing as it is a wetter style that hardens up after it sits a bit.
But both methods of frosting or icing taste delicious on these decorated heart cookies. You could even skip icing or frosting and serve plain or drizzle or partially dip in chocolate.
Storage For Valentine’s Day Shortbread Cookies
These cookies can be stored for up to 3 days at room temperature. However, they do tend to dry out pretty quickly. I recommend making them a max of 24 hours in advance of serving for the best results.
In terms of freezing, these homemade shortbread cookies can be frozen in an airtight container for up to 3 months. Thaw on the counter at room temperature when ready to enjoy.
More Valentine’s Day Dessert Ideas:
Easy Red Velvet Cookies – 5 ingredients!
Heart Eyes Emoji Valentine Oreo Cookies
Strawberry Cake Mix Cookies – Only 4 ingredients!
Valentine Lady Bug Oreos
25 Divine Red Velvet Desserts
Strawberry Jello pie – easy no-bake recipe
Recipe
Recipe
5 from 8 votes
Heart Cookies
Author: Jaclyn
Prep: 15 minutesmins
Cook: 10 minutesmins
Chill Time 15 minutesmins
Total: 40 minutesmins
These gorgeous shortbread heart cookies are perfect for Valentine's Day. Decorate with icing and sprinkles or serve plain-the choice is yours!
Ingredients
½cupbuttersoftened
¼cupgranulated sugar
1teaspoonvanilla extract
1cupall-purpose flour
red gel food coloringoptional
royal icingsprinkles, and candy hearts for decorating (optional)
Instructions
Preheat your oven to 375F. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper or silicone liners.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy-- about 2 minutes on medium-high speed.
With the mixer on low speed, add the vanilla extract and food coloring, if using, and mix until incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the flour. Mix just until the dough has come together in a ball.
Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and place it in the freezer to chill for 15-20 minutes, or until it has hardened slightly.
Lightly flour your work surface and roll the dough out until it is ¼” thick. Cut the cookies using a heart-shaped cookie cutter and place them on a baking sheet. Reroll any leftover dough and repeat the cutout process.
Bake for 10-15 minutes (depending on the size of your hearts), or until the edges are starting to turn golden brown. Allow the cookies to cool fully before icing.
Notes
Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days.
The most common mistakes when making shortbread are over-working the dough, and incorporating too much flour. The less you work the dough, the more crumbly and melt-in-your-mouth your shortbread cookies will be.
3 DO NOT OVERMIX. That's for pure shortbread, for biscuits and the like. If you're making shortbread for something like a pie, you can also add 1/3 part egg, after the sugar and butter have been creamed together, but before the flour is added.
As Leiths also recommend chilling the dough before baking, although only for 15 minutes, I make another batch of their recipe with soft butter, stick it straight in the oven without passing the fridge, and end up with thinner, crunchier biscuits – presumably because the mixture spreads as the fat melts.
Traditional Scottish shortbread is a simple recipe made with sugar, butter, flour, and salt. Other shortbread styles will include leavening agents like baking powder and baking soda, which makes them crisp instead of crumbly like traditional Scottish shortbread.
Butter is an emulsifier and it makes cookies tender. It also adds in the crispy-around-the-edges element. Adding too much butter can cause the cookies to be flat and greasy. Adding too little butter can cause the cookies to be tough and crumbly.
If it's too warm, the butter and sugar cannot properly cream and the cookies will taste dense. Many shortbread recipes call for cold butter worked into the dry ingredients and that gives you a wonderfully flaky cookie but if not mixed properly, the results can be inconsistent.
Should butter be cold or room temperature for making shortbread? Always start with cold butter straight from the refrigerator. This will keep the dough from warming up, making it greasy and difficult to roll out.
The word "bread" comes from "biscuit bread" which was made from leftover bread dough that was sweetened and dried out in the oven to make biscuits. Why do you poke holes in shortbread? The holes allow the moisture to escape during baking and more even heat distribution. This helps dry out and crisp up the cookies.
But in this shortbread cookie recipe, it really makes a difference. Chilling the dough helps the cookies hold their shape. If you don't chill your shortbread dough, the cookies will spread as they bake.
Sugar provides a fast source of energy. There are rarely any artificial additives. Cons: Shortbread is a weight watcher's nightmare because it is extremely high in saturated fat and calories. Saturated fat is the 'bad' fat which is linked to artery-clogging high cholesterol and heart disease.
Compared to butter cookies, shortbread uses a higher ratio of butter to flour, and is baked at a lower temperature. This gives it its signature delicate consistency that crumbles in the mouth when bitten. It's also often baked in a pan and cut up after baking, rather than being cut into shapes before baking.
Use unsalted butter for balanced flavour. Unsalted butter was traditionally used in baking because it was a superior product to salted - salt is used as a preservative so unsalted butter was thought to be fresher.
Making shortbread cookies with cornstarch is necessary for a tender and delicate cookie. Next time you make chocolate chip cookies, I suggest you try adding 1 Tbsp of cornstarch to the batch to help keep them extra soft and tender.
Since you will be cooking your shortbread in the lower third of the oven, you will get some top browning as the cookie bakes. The surface of the shortbread should be a toasty light brown when it is cooked. It should never appear raw or slightly opaque in the middle.
Shortbread should always have a tender, melting texture, but be slightly crisp when you bite into it. It should not generally be damp or wet underneath. A classic shortbread recipe will also only have flour, butter and sugar as the ingredients (in a 3:2:1 ratio) and not egg, which could lead to excess moisture.
These proportions make shortbread a lot more dense compared to cookies, which means you could easily end up with shortbread that's hard and crunchy rather than buttery and crumbly. Per Cooktop Cove, this can occur when the dough has either been overworked or not chilled for long enough.
Introduction: My name is Rev. Leonie Wyman, I am a colorful, tasty, splendid, fair, witty, gorgeous, splendid person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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