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
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Vicky
I baked these cookies for valentines day for my partner and the dough would not roll out, it would just crumble whenever I tried to roll it.
Sam
Hi Vicky! I am so disappointed to hear this. Unfortunately this sounds like a matter of accidentally over-measured flour 🙁
Elle
Happened to me too
Linda Kingsley
can I use baking chocolate, maybe chocolate chips for the icing instead of the wafers?
Sam
Hi Linda! You can use chocolate chips, but keep in mind if you don’t temper them properly your chocolate can be streaky. I do go over the process of tempering chocolate in my hot chocolate bombs recipe. 🙂
Sam
Hi,
Planning to make these, since I have made other recipes from you with great success. But I don’t see baking soda or powder, is that correct? No leavening agent? Just want to make sure I didn’t miss something!
Thanks!
Sam
Hi Sam! That is correct. You don’t need baking soda or powder here. The lack of leavener helps give them that nice crisp texture and helps them keep their shape. 🙂
Aditi
How to pack these cookies?
Sugar Spun Run
Hi, Aditi! Are you planning on sending them?
Fern
This is a great recipe! I usually sift the flour b/f I measure – maybe not all of it will be needed in the recipe-the texture of the dough will give clues – holds together- barely sticky – try baking a test cookie with the dough -.this provides a good idea for the possible outcome – We live in a dry region so less flour in a recipe is generally required with pastry, cookies and risen bread products.
It would be nice if cooking bloggers would provide the altitude at which they are baking . Adjustments for lower or higher altitudes for baked product recipes would be extremely helpful to those trying the recipe for the first time. One can find product /ingredient adjustment tables for just this matter. Just google it..
Laura
The dough was so crumbly I had to thrown them out. Even after more refrigeration and adding butter then were unable to be salvaged. I tripled checked that I put in the correct measurements and they were very very dry.
Sugar Spun Run
Hi, Laura! I am sorry that you experienced issues with this recipe. If your dough was dry and crumbly it is possible that you over measured the flour. This is a common mistake in baking so I have created a guide that can be used as a reference for the future. Thanks for the feedback. 🙂
Colby Fitzgerald
A delicious treat to bake on Valentine’s Day! Always love your recipes! Thank you!
Sugar Spun Run
I am so happy to hear that you enjoyed the valentine’s cookies, Colby! Thank you so much for trying my recipe. I am so glad that you have enjoyed many of my recipes. Thank you! 🙂
Belisha
I do NOT recommend this recipe at ALL!! The recipe says that everything takes 45 minutes, yet it took me 2 and a half hours. This is not because I am a bad baker, i have been baking for my whole life and I am quite speedy about it. the recipe also says it makes 40 cookies at a 1/4 inch width, yet it made less than 30 cookies at a 1/8 inch width!! my cookies were SMALLER then this recipe calls for, but the outcome was horrid. At the end the cookies crumbled WAY to much, and were not very good, I do not recommend making this, try a different recipe.
Sam
Yikes, sorry you had such a bad time with the recipe, Belisha! If the cookies crumbled too much for you it sounds like the flour may have been accidentally over-measured.
Theodore
It’s a great recipe. Very easy to follow , and I think the error is on my part…. i managed at best about 20 cookies and for the life of me could not keep the dough from cracking. Other than that I love it
Sugar Spun Run
I am so glad that you enjoyed the cookies overall but sorry that you experienced some cracking, Theodore. One of the most common mistakes in baking is over measuring the flour. It sounds like too much may have been added here. Since this is common, I have created a guide that can be used as a reference next time. 🙂
Megan Louw
Hi I really love this recipe but I would really want to know how many it makes?
Sugar Spun Run
Hi, Megan! Thank you! I typically use a 2″ cookie cutter and it yields approximately 45 cookies. Happy Baking. 🙂
Mary Lou Reside
I love these cookies! The combination of a shortbread and sugar is delicious. I used a royal icing in red & pink with sprinkles on top for my knitting/crochet group at my church. Next time I’ll use chocolate. My new valentine cookies thanks to you.
Sugar Spun Run
Thank you so much, Mary Lou! I am so glad that you enjoyed the cookies. 🙂
Lisa Crosswhite
Are you sure the chocolate icing will harden upon cooking? I’d like to put then in a clear container and don’t want them to mess up.
Sam
Hi Lisa, the icing is just melted chocolate, so long as you use the melting wafers as indicated in the recipe yes, it will harden (and pretty quickly, too).
Elisheva
These were perfect! I made for Valentine’s day for my students to decorate!
Aline
I just love your Valentines Cookies, they are so pretty ❤️
Sam
Thank you so much, Aline!!
Tommie
I’m sure this question has probably been asked before so I apologize in advance if it has been…Why do we use unsalted butter and then add salt to the recipe? If we use salted butter wouldn’t it just cancel out the salt ask for in the recipe?
Thank you in advance.
TS
Sam
A good question! I actually wrote a whole post on this if you want to read all about it here: https://sugarspunrun.com/salted-or-unsalted-butter-substitutions/
But essentially the reason is that it gives us the best control over the flavor of the baked good 🙂