Heart Cookies for Valentines Day

Looking for heart cookies for Valentines? Here is a set of delicious, chocolate dipped heart shaped sugar cookies I made and decorated for Valentine's Day. These pretty cookies will make perfect choice as Valentine's Day cookies.

These decorated sugar cookies come is a set of 2 designs, and are perfect for gifting. You can gift them as individually wrapped Valentine cookies. They can also be packed together in a set of 2 cookies or 3 cookies.

These heart cookies are in vanilla flavor. I made them using my perfect homemade sugar cookies recipe. I call it perfect because its is just that – perfect in taste (rich buttery taste) and the cookies hold their shaped so well during baking, they are in the exact same shape after baking as they go into the oven.

Once baked and completely cooled down, each cookie is dipped in melted dark chocolate. I used dark couverture chocolate to coat the cookies. To do this, I simply melted my chocolate buttons (using the double boiler method) and then dipped my cookies into the melted chocolate.

Fondant Decoration

As for the cookies decoration, I used red fondant. And that is the only color on this Valentine's Day heart cookies set.

For the first design, I made tiny little puffed red hearts and attached them to the cookies. The hearts were made entirely by hand without any cutters or tools (yes, you read it right). Click here for a full tutorial on how to make your own puffed fondant hearts (including miniature ones like the ones on this page) without any cutters). The hearts are attached to the cookies with tiny dots of melted chocolate.

For the second design, I made a fondant bow and laid it slanting across theheart cookie. Again, I did not use any special molds for the bow, just my ruler and pizza cutting wheel (more on how to make the bow below).

And off course, the single puffed fondant heart at the top left corner of the cookie was formed by hand, similar to the miniature red hearts on my first cookie design.

Overall, I had a lot of fun decorating these heart cookies set. The only tricky part was handling the chocolate.

The hot and humid country I live in is absolutely unforgiving for chocolate work. Which is my I chose couverture chocolate (as it is more stable with heat compared to normal chocolate), but I still had to work in an air-conditioned room.

How to Make and Decorate the Cookies

Ingredients

Cookies

• All purpose flour
• Granulated sugar (castor sugar)
• Butter
• Egg
• Vanilla extract

Decoration

•  Chocolate – This is to coat the cookies. You can use any chocolate you want, and I used dark chocolate.
• Fondant – I only used one color which is Satin Ice fondant in red.
• Fondant glue

Decorating Tools

• Heart shape cookie cutter
• Pizza cutting wheel– Use this to cut the fondant when making the bow on the cookies.
• Fondant shaping tools
• Toothpicks – these were used to help in making the miniature puffed fondant hearts on the cookies as well as to apply chocolate to the hearts to stick them to the cookies.
• FMM Sugarcraft Pattern Press for polka dots– This tool is to help mark the dots on the chocolate covered cookies for the placement of the miniature puffed hearts.
• Wire racks– These are to place the cookies after dipping them in chocolate.
• Parchment squares
• Sugarcraft knife 

Mixing the cookie dough

• I started by baking my cookies and cooling them down completely to room temperature. Heat is totally unforgiving for chocolate so its really important that the cookies have totally cooled down to room temperature. I normally bake mine at least one day before decorating.
• To bake the cookies, pre heat oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Place butter in a large bowl. Add the granulated sugar and cream both on medium-high speed until the mixture turns light and creamy with an electric mixer (hand mixer or stand mixer). If using a stand mixer, use the paddle attachment. Do not over mix.
• Next, add the egg and continue beating on medium speed until it is well incorporated into the creamed mixture. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl. Add vanilla extract and mix again.
• Finally, add the flour in batches into the creamed wet ingredients and mix these flour mixture until the dough comes together. Place the dough in a cling wrap (plastic wrap) covered bowl and refrigerate until it is firm. This step helps give the dough enough time to rest and is easier to handle.

Shaping and baking the cookies

• Remove dough from the fridge and divide it into smaller sections for easy rolling.
• To ensure the heart sugar cookies were all in even thickness, roll dough the on lightly floured surface in between 2 dowel sticks. In doing this, you place your rolling pin on both the dowel rods as you roll the dough. That way, you will get a uniform thickness for all the cookies.
• Cut the rolled sugar cookie dough using the heart-shaped cookie cutter.
• Place cutouts on a parchment paper or baking sheet lined baking tray.
• Refrigerate the unbaked heart shaped cookies for about 30 minutes before placing them in the oven for baking.
• Bake cookies for a bake time of 10 to 15 minutes (baking time will depend on your cookie size) until the sides start turning golden brown. Remove the cookies from the oven and let them rest for 2 minutes before removing them to a wire rack (cooling rack) to cool.
• Once the heart sugar cookies have cooled down to room temperature, you can start to decorate them. If not using immediately, store cookies in an airtight container.

Coating in chocolate

• Next is to coat the cookies with chocolate.

1. For this, melt the chocolate over a double boiler (see my post here on how to melt chocolate). Place water in a small pot.
2. Place the chocolate in a heat proof bowl (medium bowl) and place it on the pot, making sure the water is not touching the chocolate bowl. Turn on the heat and let the chocolate melt. Turn off the heat and let the bowl remain on the pot. This will help ensure the chocolate does not set as you are dipping the cookies in.
3. And then dip the cookies, one by one into the chocolate. Lift them with a fork and place them on a wire rack to let excess drip off.
4. After that, transfer them to a parchment paper to let the chocolate set completely. 
5. Once transferred onto the parchment squares, place them in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes to let the chocolate set.
6. Remove them from the refrigerator and trim off the excess chocolate that has settled at the edges of the cookies. To do this, while holding the cookie on one hand, carefully remove the parchment paper underneath in sections and trim off the excess chocolate. 

• Another option for covering the cookies with chocolate is to arrange them on a wire rack and pour the melted chocolate over the top of the cookies.
• With this option, only the top and sides of the cookies will be coated with chocolate. The bottom will remain uncoated.
• I chose the first option because I wanted the cookies to be completely covered in chocolate.

Decorating the hearts

• Since this cookie set comes in 2 different designs, it is easier to complete the first design and then move on to the second design.

1. The first design is the cookies decorated with miniature red puffed fondant hearts without the bow (I have a separate tutorial on how to make the puffed hearts and you can read it here). To make sure the hearts are at consistent intervals on the cookies, you can use FMM Sugarcraft pattern press tool to mark the position of the hearts. The tool looks like a fondant smoother but instead of a smooth surface, it has tiny spikes on it that actually help to mark the dots.
2. To mark the dots, roughly eyeball the position of the spikes on the cookies and then gently place it on the cookie to mark the dots. No need to exert any pressure as the chocolate is soft and can be marked easily.
3. Lift the tool up and you will see the dots all ready to take on the puffed hearts. If you don’t have the tool, you can always eyeball the position. Do it row by row so that you can have the marks in an orderly pattern.
4. Next attach the fondant hearts on the cookies. To do that, if the chocolate on the cookie as totally set, use a toothpick to apply a tiny amount of chocolate at the back of each heart and attach them to the cookie.

Making the fondant bow

1. The next design has a fondant bow on. To make the bow, roll some red fondant and cut out a few thin strips in the same width. Place one piece in a slanting position on the cookie. Trim off the excess at the sides. If the chocolate on the cookie has totally set, lightly brush some melted chocolate at the back of the fondant strip before attaching it to the cookie.
2. Next, cut out 2 equal sized strips of fondant for the bow loops. Loop them and cut off excess fondant.
3. Next, cut out 2 more strips. Place one halfway overlapping on the other.
4. Place the loops formed earlier on the strips as shown.
5. And wrap the loops. Start with the top. And then wrap the bottom.
6. Turn the loops over and use a fondant tool to smooth and adjust the bow.

Attaching the fondant bow to the cookies

1. Before adding the bow onto the cookie, cut out another 2 strips of fondant. For each strip, cut out a tiny triangle piece at the end.
2. Attach them to the slanting fondant strip on the cookie. To hold them in place, use fondant glue.
3. And then attach the loops (also with the help of some fondant glue) and adjust the bow so that it is in the exact position you want it to be on the cookie.
4. And finally, add a red puffed fondant heart on the top left corner of the cookie. The heart can formed by hand without any tools or cutters just like the miniature red hearts in the first design above (get the fondant heart tutorial here) and attached to the cookie with some melted chocolate.

Like this cookie recipe and tutorial? Here are my other posts you might want to check out:

• How to Make Puffed Fondant Hearts without Cutters and Molds
• Mini Valentine's Day Heart Shaped Cakes
• Chocolate Covered Orange - Quick and Easy Treats Idea
• No Spread Sugar Cookies - the Best for Cut Out Cookies
• Heart Sugar Cookies with Fondant - How to Make
• Easter Egg Cookies - How to Make
• Butterfly Cookies - Easy Decorated Shortbread Cookies
• Christmas Wreath Cookies

Recipe (Printable)

Here is the full printable version of my heartt cookies recipe.

📖Recipe

And that's my easy Valentine's Day heart cookies recipe and tutorial!

Happy decorating 🙂