Valentine’s Day Sugar Cookies: the easy heart-shaped sugar cookies recipe you’ll love

This Valentine's Day, if you want to impress your date with a sweet but easy-to-make dessert, try making Valentine's sugar cookies. These tasty heart-shaped sugar cookies are a variation of old-school sugar cookies but decorated with royal icing, so you can draw different themed designs and write sweet messages on them.

These romantic Valentine cookies have a wonderful soft inside, with lightly crispy edges, and delicious, colorful icing that you can customize however you like.

Say “I love you” on the most romantic day of the year through these delicious Valentine's day cookies – they're sure to be a hit!

Valentine's Day Cookie Ingredients

To make Valentine's cookies, you'll need most of the same ingredients you'd use if you were making regular sugar cookies.

Flour, sugar, baking soda, butter, and eggs are all a must.

Almond extract and vanilla extract give the cookies a wonderful flavor.

You'll also need plenty of powdered sugar, meringue powder, and some water to make the royal icing you'll use to decorate the cookies.

Tool-wise, you definitely need a heart-shaped cookie cutter!

How to Make Valentine's Day Sugar Cookies

Sift your dry ingredients into a bowl, then whisk them so they're combined. In the bowl of your stand mixer, cream the butter, then beat in the sugar until the mixture turns light and airy. Beat in the egg, vanilla, and almond extracts. Beat in the flour bit by bit, then continue beating until the dough comes away cleanly from the sides of the bowl.

Lay down some parchment paper and turn the dough out. Knead it for a few minutes, then pop it back into the bowl, cover it, and place it in the fridge for half an hour or so. After it has been chilled, roll the dough out on the parchment paper.

Cut out the heart-shaped cookies, repeating until all the dough has been used. Put the parchment paper with the cookies on top into the oven and bake for 10 to 13 minutes at 350F. Let them cool completely before decorating.

How to Decorate Valentine Cookies

To decorate these Valentine's day cookies, put the ingredients for the icing into a bowl and beat until fluffy. Stir in 2 tablespoons of water. Transfer half the icing to a second bowl and mix in another tablespoon of water. Divvy up the icing into separate bowls and color each bowl as you see fit.

Remember that it's important to do most of the designs on wet icing. so work in small batches of 2-3 cookies and don't flood all the cookies at once because you only need to apply the designs afterwards, so before the royal icing dries.

There are plenty of different cute designs you can use to decorate your Valentine's Day sugar cookies. Make mini roses on the cookies, flood the center of the cookies with a more liquidy icing and write out messages over the top. You can add drops of different colored icing over the main icing background and use a toothpick to make swirls or hearts, or make polka dots. Get creative!

Tips for the Best Heart-Shaped Sugar Cookies

You can make your Valentine's Day sugar cookies keto-friendly by swapping out the flour for almond or coconut flour and using sweetener instead of sugar.

For gluten-free Valentine cookies, use gluten-free flour instead of all-purpose flour.

Add other flavorings like orange extract, mint, cocoa powder, or lemon zest to make your sugar cookies even more special and delicious.

You can use frosting instead of royal icing to make your cookies more decadent.

If your icing is too thick, add a little bit more water until it reaches your desired thickness. You'll need a few both medium consistency and flood consistency to decorate your Valentine's sugar cookies.

The easiest way to decorate the cookies is with a pastry bag. If you don't have one, snip the corner off a ziplock bag and use it to pipe out the icing.

How to Store Valentine's Day Sugar Cookies

Keep any leftover cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Sift flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl then whisk to combine.

Cream butter in a separate bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in sugar until it's completely mixed into the butter.

Beat in the egg and vanilla.

Slowly beat in the flour.

Continue beating the dough until it comes away from the sides of your stand mixer or bowl. Place the dough onto a piece of parchment paper, then knead by hand for 2 to 3 minutes. Cut in half, then wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Roll the dough out to about 1/8 to ¼ inch thickness.

Using a heart-shaped cookie cutter, punch out the dough into cookies. Roll dough scraps back out and continue cutting out hearts until all the dough has been used.

Place onto a baking tray.

Bake for 10 to 13 minutes. Remove from oven and leave the cookies to cool completely.

While the cookies are cooling, put the ingredients for the icing into a bowl and beat for several minutes on the low setting. Mix in 2 tablespoons of water. Transfer half the icing to a second bowl and mix in another tablespoon of water. Divide the icing into several separate bowls and color each bowl according to how you'd like to decorate your cookies. Transfer the royal icing mixtures in separate pastry bags with a fitted tip.

Once cooled, decorate the cookies with royal icing, working in small batches of 2-3 cookies so the royal icing won't dry out – remember it needs to stay wet during decorations. First, spread the red royal icing on a cookie top. Use a toothpick to fill in any holes.

Pipe tiny polka dots along the edges.

With the tip of a toothpick, touch the center of each polka dot to make several hearts.

For another decoration, fill the cookies with white royal icing and pipe the red polka dots.

Then turn the polka dots into lips with the help of a toothpick.

Decorate the cookies again with a pink royal icing base, then pipe red and white polka dots and turn them into small hearts that head in different directions.

Among other decorations, make a drawing of a rose from a polk dot or write romantic messages like "xoxo" or "love". Serve your Valentine's sugar cookies and enjoy!

Notes

Use room temperature ingredients to make your cookies.