Our Sweet Heart Shaped Cookies are easy to make & so fun to decorate. Made with a basic sugar cookie dough, flavored with either vanilla or almond, then cut into cute little hearts. They hold their shape beautifully when baked and make the perfect Valentine's Day treat for your sweetheart.
Cut Out Sugar Cookies
It's my favorite day of the month, Creative Cookie Exchange Day! Yay! And today we get to share our delicious cookies all surrounding this month's Hearts/Love theme including these fun Sweet Heart Shaped Cookies.
Believe it or not, I had a hard time deciding what to bake this month but knew I wanted to use my new heart-shaped cookie cutter. After all, what would a hearts theme be without hearts. Right? And then I saw it ... (which after attempting it, it might have been better if I hadn't seen it) a video on how to decorate heart-shaped cookies. Now mind you, I have never decorated sugar cookies, just topped them with sprinkles, chocolate or frosting, but I thought how hard can this be? Ummm, well let me tell you, it's not as easy as it looks!
The baking went fine and these cut out sugar cookies came out perfect. I absolutely loved the basic sugar cookie recipe that I adapted only slightly from Katrina's Kitchen. The dough went together so smoothly and it didn't need any refrigerating prior to cutting out the cookies. I did add a few mini chocolate chips to half the batter, to see if it would work, and it didn't interfere with cutting the cookies at all.
Decorated Sugar Cookies
Now on to the decorating adventure. First up was making the royal icing. I found several recipes for the icing, most of which suggested using meringue powder, so I went with Joy of Baking's recipe. But mixing it was another thing. Her recipe said to bring it to stiff peaks while another said just soft peaks. I wound up forming the stiff peaks and then adding more water to get the required "flood consistency". My first attempt at covering the cookies with the icing was a disaster - the icing was still too thick.
OK, everything back into the separate bowls, because I had already colored the icing (duh!), and try to thin it out a little more. My second attempt was a little better but it probably could have been just a little thinner. I also didn't have all the required tools but thought I could make do. I had one of the correct tips, but with 3 colors, two more would have made my life a lot easier. I did use my OXO Decorating Kit and, if I'd had the extra tips and one more of the bottles, everything would have been honky dory. Alas, such was not the case.
But to make a long story short, I did manage to get the icing on to the heart shaped cookies and to decorate them with a somewhat successful, but definitely not, professional quality result. If you would like to see how it's really done you've got to watch this great video by SweetAmbs found here. And that's all there is to it! lol
It turned out these sweet heart cookies were a fun thing to do and I might even attempt it again some day! 🙂 Now check out all the great recipes below showing off some Valentine's Day love.
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SWEET HEART SHAPED COOKIES
Ingredients
Cookies
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon almond or lemon extract
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon lemon zest (optional)
Royal Icing
- 2 cups confectioners' sugar
- 2 Tablespoons meringue powder
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract
- ⅓+ cup warm water (I used ½ cup total)
- Food coloring (use gel pastes so as not to dilute icing)
Instructions
Cookies
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 3 cookie sheets with silicone mat or parchment paper.
- Using an electric mixer, cream butter and sugar until smooth. Beat in extracts and egg.
- In a medium bowl, combine baking powder and flour and slowly add to creamed mixture. Beat until well combined.
- Divide dough into thirds and work with 1 batch at a time. Flour a flat surface and roll out to about a ¼" thickness. Cut with cookie cutter into desired shapes.
- Place on prepared cookie sheets and bake for 10-11 minutes. Remove from oven, let cool about 20 minutes on cookie sheets then move to wire racks to cool completely.
- Once cookies are cool they can be iced and decorated.
Royal Icing
- Using an electric mixer, beat all ingredients together until stiff peaks form, about 5-7 minutes. To get the "flood consistency" called for, add either more confectioners' sugar or water so that the icing when dropped from the beater falls back into the bowl and disappears after a few seconds. Keep whatever icing you are not using at the time covered with a damp towel or plastic wrap.
- I divided my icing into thirds and colored one pink, one red and left one white.
- To make the wavy pattern design, cover the cookie with pink icing. Make 3-4 horizontal stripes with red icing then place white icing stripes in between them. Take a sharp skewer, I used a large basting needle, and draw a vertical line down the center then 2 to either side. Let dry for at least 4 hours before storing.
- To make heart pattern, I covered the cookie with red icing then made white icing polka dots. Take the sharp skewer or needle and pull in vertical lines down center and to either side so it pulls the polka dots into heart shapes.
- Or just ice and sprinkle with colorful sprinkles. By the way, I am sure this is one the kids would love to help with - think of the patterns they would create!
Notes
It is late January guys and you know what that means! Soon love will be in the air! Too corny? OK fine, but we all know Valentine’s Day is about to start trending, and we have the perfect cookies! Hearts, love, anything symbolizing hearts and love, we have it all! Check out our hearts and love cookies below and maybe make them for your loved ones!
You can also use us as a great resource for cookie recipes. Be sure to check out our Pinterest Board and our monthly posts (you can find all of them here at The Spiced Life). You will be able to find them the first Tuesday after the 15th of each month! Also, if you are looking for inspiration to get in the kitchen and start baking, check out what all of the hosting bloggers have made:
- Aloha Linzer Cookies by All That's Left Are The Crumbs
- Cheese Hearts by Bakingyummies
- Chocolate Valentine Sugar Cookies by Karen's Kitchen Stories
- Dark Chocolate Sugar Cookies by Flours and Frostings
- Double Chocolate Spritz Heart Cookies by The Spiced Life
- Happy Heart Lemon Cookies by Hezzi-D's Books and Cooks
- LoftHouse Cookies by Oven Delights
- Meringue Hearts by Noshing With The Nolands
- Nutella Raspberry Cookies by Upstate Ramblings
- Pomegranate, Rose and White Chocolate Cookies by A Shaggy Dough Story
- Sour Cream Pecan Sandies by Magnolia Days
- Sweet Heart Cookies by 2 Cookin' Mamas
- Yin Yang Cookies by Food Lust People Love
Anabel says
You had me at mini chocolate chips! This would be a great cookie to dunk!
Lovely presentation, I think they turned out lovely!
Mary Frances says
The cookies look really good! I'm sure you had a great time baking them and an even better time having them 🙂
Felice says
I think your cookies look amazing, and royal icing is one thing I have not tackled yet either. I must remedy that.
Linda Warren says
Thanks so much Felice. When you do tackle it, make sure you have all the appropriate equipment and have plenty of patience on hand. It takes a little practice in getting the icing the right consistency and learning how to make the patterns with a steady hand. It was fun but a little more work than most cookies.
Bakingyummies says
The hearts look pretty and I think you have one a decent job with decorating considering this was your first time!
Stacy says
The important thing is that the cookies taste good and that you have fun making them! It's a bonus when they turn out as pretty as yours did, Linda.
Laura T (@TheSpicedLife) says
I am SERIOUSLY impressed! I have never even had the nerve to try lol! And I love the chocolate chips--nice touch.
Linda Warren says
Thanks Laura! My husband & co-workers really enjoyed them so they were worth all the groans and darn its while making them. lol I'm definitely glad I tried it - once.
Anne says
You did a great job with these, the icing is very pretty!
Hezzi-D says
Your cookies are gorgeous! I love how you decorated them.
abakershouse says
These are certainly a decorating success! You are being too hard on yourself! You could put these in a box, wrap them with twine and they'd look like they came from a star bakery. Gorgeous!
Linda Warren says
You are so kind Holly! They were fun to try so I am glad they turned out as well as they did.
Karen @ Karen's Kitchen Stories says
Ha ha, here we both are apologizing for our iced cookies! I think yours look amazing! Let's pat ourselves on the back for putting ourselves out there =) And there's always sprinkles!!
taranoland says
So sweet, I love your cookies, Happy Valentine's Day!!
akshatha says
Linda , You really have done a great job with the icing. I' m yet to try my hand at royal icing !
Robin @ A Shaggy Dough Story says
What beautiful cookies! I'm so impressed by your mad icing skillz.
Linda Warren says
Ah Robin, you might not be saying that about my mad icing skills if you had watched me making them. lol Thanks so much.
Renee Dobbs says
Pretty cookies! You did a great job with the icing.
Linda Warren says
Thanks Renee! It was definitely a labor of love. 🙂