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+ servings
A set of 3 heart shaped cookies decorated with red hearts and bow.
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5 from 1 vote

Heart Cookies for Valentine's Day

These heart cookies make romantic treats with decadent dark chocolate, cute little red hearts and bows, perfect for Valentine's Day!
Prep Time30 minutes
Cook Time10 minutes
Decorating time1 hour
Total Time1 hour 40 minutes
Course: Dessert
Cuisine: American
Servings: 20 cookies
Calories: 50.2kcal
Author: Priya Maha

Equipment

  • Pizza cutting wheel
  • Fondant shaping tools
  • Toothpicks
  • FMM Sugarcraft Pattern Press for polka dots
  • Wire racks
  • Parchment squares
  • Sugarcraft knife

Ingredients

Cookies

  • 400 g all purpose flour
  • 180 g granulated sugar
  • 200 g butter (salted)
  • 1 egg
  • ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Decoration

  • Dark chocolate
  • Red fondant
  • Fondant glue

Instructions

Bake the cookies

  • Line baking tray with parchment paper and pre-heat oven to 175 °Celsius. Place butter in a clean bowl.
  • Add the granulated sugar and cream both until the mixture turns light and creamy. Do not over mix.
  • Next, add the egg and continue beating until it is well incorporated into the creamed mixture. Add vanilla extract and mix again.
  • Finally, add the flour in batches and mix until the dough comes together. Place the dough in a covered bowl and refrigerate for 15 to 20 minutes (see Note 1).
  • Remove dough from the fridge and roll it between parchment paper or plastic sheets. Use dowel rods as a guide for the thickness of your cookies (see Note 2).
  • Cut the dough with the heart cookie cutter. Transfer onto a parchment lined baking tray and refrigerate them again until they are firm for about 20 minutes or more.
  • Bake the cookies in a pre-heated oven for about 10 to 15 minutes (depending on the size of your cookies) until they have turned golden brown.
  • Remove the cookies from the oven and cool them on a wire rack. Keep cookies in an airtight container until ready to be decorated.

Coat the cookies in chocolate

  • Melt the chocolate over double boiler and dip the cookies, one by one into the chocolate (see Note 3).
  • Transfer the chocolate dipped cookies onto parchment paper squares. Place the cookies in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes to allow the chocolate to set.
  • Once removed from the refrigerator, trim off the excess chocolate that has settled at the edges of the cookies. To do this, use the sugar craft knife and while holding the cookie on one hand, carefully remove the parchment paper underneath in sections and carefully trim off the excess chocolate.

Decorate the chocolate heart cookies

  • Use a pattern press tool to mark the dots on the cookies. You can also mark the dots without the tool, by hand.
  • To make the fondant hearts, start by pinching tiny pieces of red fondant.
  • Shape the fondant pieces into smooth balls and then roll the balls into tiny sausages.
  • Using a toothpick, gently press the center of the sausages to form a dent. In forming the dent, make sure you do not press it too hard that it becomes flat in the center. Suffice if you make a tiny dent.
  • Fold the fondant sausage such that both ends of the sausage meet and stick together.
  • Gently pinch the pointed end to make it nice and pointy and adjust the round tops of the heart until you achieve a cute puffed heart.
  • Attach the fondant hearts to the cookies (on the markings made to the cookie earlier) with tiny dots of melted chocolate.

Make the fondant bow

  • Roll some red fondant and cut out a few thin strips in the same width. Place one strip on the cookie is a slanting position. And then 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.
  • Next, cut out 2 equal sized strips of fondant for the bow loops. Loop them and cut off excess fondant. Use fondant glue to hold the loops in place.
  • Next, cut out 2 more strips. Place one halfway on the other strip and wrap it around the earlier made loops.
  • Turn the bow over and use the fondant tool to smooth and adjust the bow.

Attach the fondant bow to the cookies

  • Before adding the bow onto the cookies, cut out 2 more strips of fondant. For each strip, cut out a tiny triangle piece at the end and attach them to the fondant strip on the cookie. To hold them in place, use fondant glue.
  • And then attach the loops (also with the help of some fondant glue) and adjust the bow so that it is in the correct position on the cookie.
  • And finally, add a puffed fondant heart on the top left corner of the cookie. Form the heart by hand without any tools or cutters just like the miniature red hearts in the first design above and attach it to the cookie with some melted chocolate.

Notes

  1. Chilling the dough for too long will make it difficult to roll. If that happens, leave the dough at room temperature for a few minutes until it softens before rolling again.
  2. Place dowel rods on either side of the dough and roll the dough with the rolling pin resting on the rods on either side of the rolling pin. Also make sure you roll the dough on a flat surface. That way, the thickness of the rolled cookies will be uniform all over and so would your cookies, after cutting them out.
  3. 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.
  4. This recipe makes crumbly cookies. If you wish to make chewy cookies, reduce the baking time by at least 2 to 3 minutes. If you wish to make larger or smaller cookies, adjust the baking time accordingly.
  5. 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.

Nutrition

Calories: 50.2kcal | Carbohydrates: 6.5g | Protein: 0.6g | Fat: 2.4g | Saturated Fat: 0.6g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 0.3g | Monounsaturated Fat: 1.3g | Cholesterol: 2mg | Sodium: 52.4mg | Potassium: 10mg | Fiber: 0.2g | Sugar: 1.5g | Vitamin A: 8.6IU | Calcium: 3.5mg | Iron: 0.3mg