Easy Valentine Cookies

With a simple decorating technique and a one-bowl, no-mixer shortbread dough, these crisp, buttery, super easy Valentine cookies are perfect for spreading the love!

I've had a lovely week. As in, LOVE-ly. You see, I've been playing around in the kitchen all week, coming up with some fun, delicious, beautiful and easy Valentine cookies. I tried a bunch of ideas and made a HUGE mess with flour, sugar, icing, sprinkles, nonpareils and cookie cutters strewn all over the kitchen. In the end, I'm thrilled with these crisp, buttery, shortbread cookies.

It's funny how one thing leads to another. After Scott and I got all the Christmas decorations taken down and tucked them away in January, the house looked so plain, both indoors and out. We rearranged a few things inside to freshen the look and I happened to see a beautiful wreath on Amazon to brighten the front door. When the wreath arrived, it was even prettier than it looked online. I didn't waste a minute before putting it up.

Well, that pretty pink wreath got me thinking about Valentines Day and that got me thinking about sweet treats to share with loved ones. Then cookie ideas started rolling around in my mind. I couldn't wait to get started. And now here I am, ready to tell you all about these wonderful Easy Valentine Cookies. See what I mean about one thing leading to another? Yikes!

I decided to use a favorite technique for these cookies, one that I've used over and over with great success. You might remember it from these Christmas Shortbread Cookies,  these Christmas Tree Shortbread Cookies or these Spring Shortbread Cookies, to name a few. In fact, I've utilized this easy trick so many times that I decided to give it a name. I call it the Dip, Drip and Flip technique. Check out below how easy (and fun) it is!

The dough for these Easy Valentine Cookies is also an old friend. I've been a huge shortbread fan for as long as I can remember and have spent years tweaking and refining to come up with a perfect recipe. The cookies had to be buttery and crisp (and maintain that crispness when stored), they had to hold their shape in the oven and lastly, but most importantly, the recipe had to be easy to put together and have super delicious results.

This Easy Valentine Cookies recipe is all that. With just the right proportions of butter, sugar and flour to yield that sweet, buttery flavor and shatteringly crisp texture these cookies also store well for at least a week. The one-bowl, no-mixture dough technique takes minutes to put together. A small portion of corn starch and a chill before baking helps these cookies maintain their pretty shape in the oven.

So here's a little picture tutorial on the Dip, Drip and Flip technique:

Make a simple 2-ingredient glaze and swirl a bit of gel food coloring through it with a toothpick. DIP the top of a cookie into the swirled glaze, then lift straight up and over to a separate bowl. Let the glaze DRIP for 20-30 seconds, then FLIP the cookie over to reveal the pretty marbled pattern.

A fun party idea!

I had an inspiration while I was decorating these cookies. Wouldn't it be fun to have a Dip, Drip and Flip party? Here's how it could work:

• Mix, roll and bake the cookies in advance. (You could do this several weeks in advance and store them in the freezer or several days ahead and keep them in an airtight storage container.)
• Provide bowls of the white icing/glaze, toothpicks, an array of gel food color and some pretty sprinkles for the party guests.
• Demonstrate the easy Dip, Drip and Flip technique.
•  Let each guest swirl their favorite color(s) into the glaze and then, dip, drip and flip! Have fun checking out each other's artworks!
• Offer coffee, tea and/or tall glasses of cold milk and indulge!
• How about a DD&F party for kids? They'd have a blast doing the easy technique and would be "wowed!"at the beautiful creations they could make.

I'm hoping this post and these Easy Valentine cookies have put you in a LOVE-ly mood or mode. You probably have everything you need to make a batch. They'll make lovely gifts for friends, family, co-workers, neighbors... anyone you want to share a little delicious love with!

Café Tips for making these Easy Valentine Cookies

• To dress these cookies up a bit, I added a sprinkle of red, pink and white nonpareils on top of the glaze. I like to concentrate most of the sprinkles at the upper edge of the hearts for an artistic effect but you could also sprinkle the nonpareils evenly over the cookies. You choose
• Because there’s no mixer used with this Easy Valentines Cookies recipe, the butter needs to be very soft when mixing up the dough. That can be difficult, especially during the colder months, even if you let the butter sit out for hours. A short stint in the microwave on power level 10 (10%) works like magic to soften butter. You’ll need to experiment a bit with your microwave though, as they’re all different. Start with 20 or 30-second increments at power level 10 until you learn how long your microwave will take to get the butter nice and soft, but not melted.
• Another technique I often use to soften butter is to put it in the microwave overnight with the light on. To keep the light on in the microwave I put a folded paper towel in the door. It works like a charm!
• I used Wilton’s Teal and Pink gel food colorings for these Easy Valentine Cookies.
• I decided to try rolling these cookies a bit thinner (⅙-inch) than some of my previous shortbread cookies. They turned out wonderfully crisp and with less calories per cookie (a win-win!) I'm not great at rolling dough evenly though so I cheat a bit with a, what I call, magic rolling pin. This reasonably priced rolling pin is a super easy way to achieve the same perfect thickness for all your cookies. It has 1/16, ⅙, ¼, and ⅜-inch removable discs, which make it. Have a baker on your shopping list? This would make a lovely gift that can be used year round.

• I used almond extract in my glaze. Feel free to use other flavorings. Orange, lemon, raspberry and coconut extracts are also delicious. You could also just use vanilla, but not more than a half teaspoon, as it will darken the icing.
• Flavor extracts can vary in intensity. It’s better to start with a small amount in the icing, then take a little taste. You can always add more, but you can’t remove it!
• The recipe calls for a one hour (or longer) chill for the cutout cookies. If I’m in a big hurry, I just pop them into the freezer for 10-15 minutes.
• A few tips on rolling and cutting out cookies:
  • Keep your work surface and rolling pin lightly dusted with flour.
  • I also like to rub the cutting edge of my cookie cutter in a little flour in between each cookie.
  • Press fairly firmly when cutting out the cookies, but don’t twist the cookie cutter as the heart shape will get distorted.
  • If you don’t have room in your refrigerator to chill the cookies on two sheet pans, just transfer all of them to one pan after cutting. Then later, once they’re chilled, you can divide them between the two pans for baking.
  • Unlike many rolled cookie doughs, rerolling the scraps does not produce inferior cookies. However, when re-rolling, try to incorporate as little extra flour as possible.
• Occasionally, some of the cookies will be slightly puffed on the top when removed from the oven. You can give them a nice flat top by pushing on the top gently with a metal spatula.
• Sometimes after mixing the glaze for these cookies, there will be lots of bubbles. These bubbles will cause imperfections in the surface of the glazed cookies. Simply stir the glaze very slowly to get rid of the bubbles.
• If you let the glazed cookies drip into the same bowl over and over the glaze will get murky before you’re finished icing all the cookies. Because of this, I like to let the glazed cookies drip into a separate bowl.
• I got my heart-shaped cookie cutters from Amazon.

5 from 8 votes

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Easy Valentine Cookies

With a simple decorating technique and a one-bowl, no-mixer shortbread dough, these crisp, buttery, super easy Valentine cookies are perfect for spreading the love!

Author: Chris Scheuer

Course: Cookies, Dessert

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Easy Valentine Cookies

Prep Time: 40 mins

Cook Time: 14 mins

Total Time: 54 mins

Servings: 24

Calories: 117 kcal

Ingredients

For the cookies:

• 8 ounces very soft butter
• ½ cup powdered sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
• ¼ cup cornstarch

For the glaze:

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 4-5 tablespoons half and half or milk
• ¼ teaspoon almond extract
• gel paste food coloring

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

For the cookies:

1. Line two sheet pans with parchment paper. Set aside.

2. Place soft butter in a medium-size mixing bowl. Stir with a wooden spoon or sturdy spatula until nice and smooth. Add powdered sugar and vanilla. Mix together (by hand) until well blended.

3. Add the flour and corn starch. Stir until dry ingredients are incorporated. The dough will be a little shaggy. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface and gather into a ball.

4. Knead 5-6 times until fairly smooth and all the small pieces are worked in. Form into a ball again and flatten with your hand to form a flat disk. Turn the disk to coat both sides lightly with flour.
5. Roll out the dough to an approximate ⅙-inch thickness (see Café Tips above in the post). Keep work surface, dough and rolling pin lightly dusted with flour. Cut out hearts (in one or more sizes) and transfer to prepared pans with a thin, metal spatula. Re-roll scraps as many times as needed to use up the dough.
6. Place cutouts in the refrigerator for at least one hour or up to 24 hours. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350˚F. Remove 1 pan of cutouts from the refrigerator and bake for 12-14 minutes, or until just beginning to turn golden at the edges. Rotate pans halfway through for even browning. Repeat with the second pan of cutouts.
7. Cool completely before icing.

For the glaze:

1. Combine powdered sugar, 4 tablespoons half and half (or milk) and almond extract in a medium-size bowl. Mix until smooth. The glaze should be fairly thick, but pourable. Add a little more half and half if too thick. Taste the glaze and add more extract, if a more intense flavor is desired.
2. Transfer the glaze to a small shallow bowl (a little bigger than your cookies). With a toothpick, swirl a small amount of gel food coloring through the icing in the bowl. Don’t swirl too much or the icing will become a solid color. Use a light hand with the gel food coloring. A little goes a long way!

3. To glaze the cookies, hold onto the edge of a cookie and dip the top surface into the glaze, being sure all of the surface touches the glaze. Pull cookie straight up and out of the glaze. Allow excess glaze to drip into another bowl or plate (this will keep the glaze from getting murky) for about 30 seconds. When glaze stops dripping, quickly flip the cookie to the right side up and give it a gentle jiggle to allow the glaze to flow evenly over the surface, especially at the edges. Sprinkle with nonpareils as desired. Repeat with remaining cookies.

4. Place cookies on a cooling rack and allow glaze to dry completely.

Recipe Notes

Makes 24-30 cookies, depending on the size of your cookie cutters.

See Café Tips above in post for more detailed instructions and tips.

I got my heart cookie cutters from Amazon.

Calories 117kcal

Fat 7g

Saturated fat 4g

Cholesterol 20mg

Sodium 68mg

Potassium 13mg

Carbohydrates 10g

Sugar 2g

Protein 1g

Vitamin A 240%

Calcium 5%

Iron 0.4%