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 ¼″ 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 unsalted butter softened (226g)
- ¾ cups sugar (150g)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 large egg yolk
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour (295g)
- 1 cup dark chocolate melting wafers (170g)
- 1 cup white chocolate melting wafers (170g)
- 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.
- 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.
- Add egg yolk and beat until combined
- 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).
- 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.
- 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.
- Allow chocolate to harden before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
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Dorothy Lin
I love the cookies, Sam! They taste great, esp. dipped in Ghirardelli dark chocolate melting wafers w/ sprinkles. I put too much flour in my first batch (1/2 cup instead of 1/4 cup) and therefore those were more crumbly. The second batch was perfect. Even though they were thick, they are still delicate and easy to crack, so we were careful making them. My fourteen year old twins rolled them out, baked and decorated them, and gave them to friends for Valentine’s Day. Very cute and very festive. Thanks!
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Dorothy! 🙂
Elle
I am going to make these cookies and I just wanted to ask if I can use a hand mixer instead of a electric one because I am using olive oil instead of butter.
Sam
I really don’t recommend the olive oil substitution here. They are going to be a little messy, but you can mix by hand if you’d like.
Norman
Absolutely great success with this recipe. I was so worried I was going to mess this up because of several others having issue but my first attempt came out wonderful. I couldn’t find my cookie cutter so I used a knife to cut them into heart of all different types like floating hearts and traditional for example plus I was so anxious to make them I didn’t realize you used white and chocolate bark but I put dark chocolate confectioners sugar and butter together to dizzled on top of half and the rest I melted a white chocolate candy bar to cover. I did have sprinkles but I put them on sparingly before baking plus instead of rolling out in flour I used sugar instead but I did chill it before using as your other cookie recipes say it’s an important step. Just wanted to thank you for another delicious recipe. I’m sure to make again and again
Sam
I’m so glad you enjoyed them so much, Norman! I’m happy to hear they turned out so well. 🙂