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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.
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.
Ingredients for Shortbread Heart Cookies
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.
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.
As the name suggests a butter cookie has a high proportion of butter. However, unlike a shortbread the amount of flour and sugar used is increased meaning they hold their shape more effectively.
Irish Shortbread Is Distinct From Scottish Shortbread
As cornstarch is a potent thickener relative to flour, this creates a denser cookie. Whichever version of shortbread you prefer, though, the original -- which is often just called "shortbread" -- came from Scotland.
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.
Step 3: The Secret to the Absolute Best Shortbread
After shaping the cookies, don't rush to the oven! Instead, chill the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or so (overnight is OK, too). A short stay in the fridge will firm up the cookies and solidify the butter. This will help keep them from spreading too much.
Piercing the shortbread with a fork is not only for decoration, but it's meant for more even baking. Poking holes in the shortbread allows the heat to penetrate the cookie, hence more even baking. Notice I'm using powdered sugar here. You'll see lots of shortbread recipes using granulated sugar.
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.
To most of the rest of the English-speaking world, a biscuit is what Americans would refer to as either a cookie or a cracker. Biscuits can be sweet (shortbread) or savory. They're baked in the oven, and they're crisp, not chewy.
Shortbread relies on really good-quality unsalted butter for its flavour, so don't skimp on this and never use margarine! The high butter (or shortening ) content helps to keep the gluten in the flour short and soft. But, for that delectable, friable texture, it's also important to keep a light hand.
Immediately cut the shortbread, while it's warm; if you wait until it's cool, it won't cut easily. Using a pizza wheel or sharp knife, cut each round into 12 wedges. If you've baked squares, cut each square into four smaller squares, then cut each of those into thirds to make a total of 24 strips (12 per pan).
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.
The story of shortbread begins with the medieval “biscuit bread”. Any leftover dough from bread making was dried out in a low oven until it hardened into a type of rusk: the word “biscuit” means “twice cooked”. Gradually the yeast in the bread was replaced by butter, and biscuit bread developed into shortbread.
This unexpected addition will make buttery confections like shortbreads and shortcakes even more tender and flaky. “Biscuits should be crumbly, buttery and sweet,” reads a headnote for a cinnamon sugar-spiced shortbread recipe in the Ritz London Cookbook.
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.
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.
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