Valentine Cookies
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Valentine Cookies are made with a simple sugar cookie bases and are dipped in white and dark chocolate and sprinkled with nonpareils (for a great, crunchy texture!) or sprinkles. These are the perfect Valentine’s Day dessert!
I finally get it.
I finally understand why stores set up their Christmas displays immediately after Halloween and why Valentine hearts begin popping up immediately after ringing in the New Year. Holiday seasons are short and they pass by quickly, and if you don’t start early you could miss out entirely.
I used to hold off on sharing my holiday-related recipes — who wants to see Christmas cookies before Thanksgiving, right? But… but so many of you come to my site through Pinterest or Facebook and in order to give these recipes a chance to even be seen at all, I need to be sharing them weeks or months in advance.
So while I was hesitant to share these Valentine Cookies already because it’s not even February yet and it’s hard for me to imagine anyone having their life so together that they’re already searching for Valentine’s Day recipes, I’m actually late to the pink & red game.
Basically, if I were a good blogger, I’d actually be sharing Cinco de Mayo recipes by now. I. Just. Can’t.
So for those of you seeing these Valentine Cookies in January, I hope you don’t mind. Is it ever really too soon for a buttery, chocolate and sprinkle covered cookie, anyway?
The cookie base for this recipe is one that I’ve used many times here before, it’s a favorite of mine that’s similar to shortbread (but better!) and I’ve adapted it into so many other recipes from my thumbprint cookies to my millionaire’s shortbread to my sugar cookies.
It’s simple to make, easy to roll-out, holds its shape perfectly while baking, and has a great not-too-sweet, buttery flavor and crisp texture that is perfect for covering in chocolate and sprinkles.
Tips for Making Valentine Cookies
- This dough can be left to chill for longer than 15 minutes — overnight or even 48 hours in advance will be fine — but if it is chilled this long it will need to sit at room temperature for about 15-30 minutes before it will be pliable enough to easily roll without cracking.
- Make sure to roll your dough at least 1/4″ thick — you want the cookies to be thick enough that you can grip the base and dip them in chocolate easily.
- Cool your cookies completely before dipping — these Valentine cookies are fragile while they’re still warm!
- You can use any size/shape cookie cutter you want, but the bake time will vary depending on the size. Look for edges that are just beginning to turn golden brown to know that they are done.
- I used these heart cookie cutters (affiliate link) from Amazon, I used the second and third smallest cutters for the cookies in these pictures.
- If you don’t have melting wafers available where you are, you can use chocolate chips instead. Substitute 1 cup melting wafers for 1 cup of preferred chocolate chips and add 1 teaspoon of shortening. Melt the chocolate at 15 second increments, stirring in between, until smooth, and then dip your cookies. This chocolate coating will take longer to cool than the melting wafers would.
Enjoy!
How to Make Valentine Cookies
Valentine Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter, softened
- ¾ cups (150 g) sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 large egg yolk
- 2 ¼ cups (295 g) all-purpose flour
- 1 cup (170 g) dark chocolate melting wafers
- 1 cup (170 g) white chocolate melting wafers
- Nonpareils for decoration
Instructions
- Combine butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer (or you may use a large bowl and an electric hand mixer) and beat until well-creamed.1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter, ¾ cups (150 g) sugar
- Stir in vanilla extract and salt, stirring until well-combined, and scrape down the sides of the bowl using a rubber spatula to ensure ingredients are well-incorporated.1 teaspoon vanilla extract, ½ teaspoon salt
- Add egg yolk and beat until combined1 large egg yolk
- With mixer on medium-low speed, gradually add flour until well-incorporated (you will definitely need to scrape down the sides and the bottom of the bowl several times for this, as the mixture is fairly dry and crumbs tend to settle at the bottom of the bowl).2 ¼ cups (295 g) all-purpose flour
- Transfer dough to clean surface and use your hands to form it into a cohesive ball.
- Flatten into a disk (about 1" thick), cover with clear wrap, and chill for 15 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 350F (175C) and line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Set aside.
- Once dough has chilled, transfer it to a clean, lightly floured surface and use a lightly floured rolling pin to roll out to ¼" thickness.
- Lightly flour your cookie cutters and cut out your shapes, transferring them to ungreased cookie sheet.
- Once you have cut out all of the shapes that you can, be sure to re-combine the scraps and roll out and cut out again to get the maximum number of cookies from your dough.
- Bake on 350F for 10-12 minutes (this is how long it took me to bake my 2" heart cookies, you may need less time for smaller cookies or longer if you are using larger cookie cutters -- look for the edges to be just beginning to turn lightly golden brown) and allow cookies to cool completely before dipping in chocolate.
- Prep chocolate by placing dark chocolate melting wafers in one bowl and white chocolate melting wafers in another and preparing according to package instructions.1 cup (170 g) dark chocolate melting wafers, 1 cup (170 g) white chocolate melting wafers
- Once chocolate is melted, line a cookie sheet with wax paper and, firmly holding the base of each cookie, dip the surface into the chocolate.
- Immediately after dipping, place on wax paper lined cookie sheet (chocolate side up) and immediately sprinkle with nonpareils/sprinkles. Repeat, alternating with white and dark chocolate, until all cookies are covered with chocolate.Nonpareils for decoration
- Allow chocolate to harden before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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My, my. One of the best recipes not to sweet and easy to work with. Easy and popular with Everyone! I am gifting a baker tool set and this cookie dough for our 4 year old and 7 year old grand nieces. Measuring out the ingredients on a scale is so much easier, Thank you for the tip Sam! Every recipe I have tried has been spot on. I can trust your wisdom and return to your site often.
Candescence,
Candice.
Thank you so much for trusting my recipes, Candice! I’m so glad these were such a hit! 🙂