Valentine's Cookies
Homemade Valentine’s Cookies are an easy and fun way to celebrate love in the sweetest form. From classic heart shapes to festive pink and red icing designs, these Valentine’s sugar cookies are perfect for gifting to that special someone, sharing with friends, or enjoying with family. This step by step decorating guide is geared toward novice to intermediate cookie decorators.
Equipment
- Measuring Spoons
- Measuring Cups
- Stand Mixer with mixing bowls or hand mixer with a large mixing bowl
- Cooling Rack
- Rolling Pin
- Parchment Paper
- Baking Sheet
- Heart-shaped Cookie Cutter
- Piping Bags (optional)
- Scribe tool (optional) (can use a toothpick instead)
Ingredients
- 1 Batch Valentine Shaped Sugar Cookies or cookies of your choice
- 2 cups Confectioners Sugar 226g
- 1 ½ tbsp Meringue Powder 15g
- 3 ½ tbsp Water
- ½ tsp Vanilla Extract
- Food Coloring Red, Pink, and White
- Assorted Sprinkles
Instructions
Prepare the Royal Icing
- Make a batch of royal icing, you can either follow my recipe or your own. Thin down the consistency by adding a little bit of water at a time until you get a 10 second consistency. This is where you can drizzle the the icing back into the bowl and it will sit on the surface for about 10 seconds before it melts back in to the rest of the icing.
- Divide the icing in to three bowls. Keep one bowl white, add red food coloring to the second bowl and stir in. Add pink food coloring to the third bowl and stir it in.
- Place colored royal icing into piping bags and snip off the ends. Just snip a small bit of the tip off. You can always cut off more if necessary.
How To Pipe and Flood Cookies
- To pipe a line of icing, place the piping bag tip so it is just touching the front edge of the cookie. Gently squeeze the piping bag until icing begins to come out. As the icing is coming out pull the tip slightly upwards so it isn't touching the cookie and there is a bit of a "string" of icing between the cookie and the bag. Guide this string of icing around the edge of the cookie as you keep gentle pressure on the piping bag. Keep the thin line of icing around the edge of the cookie - close to the edge but don't go over. This piped edge provides a barrier for the next step.
- Flood the inside of this piped edge with more icing. You want to follow the pattern of the piped edge laying down a thick coat of icing (by squeezing more firmly on the piping bag) making your way around so the entire cookie is covered. Try not to leave any gaps.
- Now use a scribe (pointy metal tool) or a toothpick to wiggle the icing around to fill in the gaps. Sometimes a little shake of the cookie also helps the icing to settle into a smooth coating.
- The cookie is now piped and flooded. If left to dry it will take about 2 hours. Or you can add sprinkles onto the wet icing surface, then allow the icing to dry.
How to Make Connected Heart Shapes
- Pipe and flood a cookie with royal icing. I chose to use a light pink icing.
- Choose a different color of royal icing that you want the little hearts to be. In my case I chose red. Pipe little dots of red icing around the edge of the cookie. Not too close together.
- Start with your scribe at one of the top dots. You want to start the scribe in the background flood color (pink in my case) about 1/4" away from the first dot and drag the scribe through the first dot - top to bottom of dot, this will create a heart shape out of the dot. Don't remove the scribe from the icing but keep dragging through the background color and move on to the second dot. Drag the scribe through the second dot and continue around the cookie going through all the dots. Set the cookie aside to dry for 2 hours.
Individual Heart Edge
- Pipe and flood your background color. Add dots of a different color around the edge of the cookie while the background is still wet.
- Use your scribe to make hearts pointing towards the center of the cookie. Pick any dot to start with. Scribe starts on the side of the dot closest to the outside edge of the cookie, pull the scribe through the dot towards the center of the cookie. This will make a heart. Remove the scribe and clean the point before moving on to the next dot.
Feathered Valentine's Cookies
- Pipe and flood the cookie with the color you want as the background, I used white. Pipe alternating horizontal lines of two other colors (red and pink for me).
- Using a scribe or toothpick, start at the top left edge and drag the scribe down through the horizontal lines. Then move over a bit and drag another line down. (Spacing between vertical lines should be such that there is enough space to drag another vertical line between them in the next step.) Continue drawing vertical lines down until you reach the other edge of the cookie.
- Once you have done all the vertical lines from top to bottom. Go in between each set of vertical lines and drag the scribe in another vertical line but from bottom to top. Now set the cookie aside to dry for about 2 hours.
Piped Edge with Sprinkles
- Pipe the edge of your cookie with royal icing. Dip the front face of the cookie into sprinkles of your choosing. Try not to push too hard into the sprinkles or it will flatten the edge. Gently rotate the cookie around as needed until the piped line is covered. Set the cookie aside for about 2 hours to allow the icing to harden
- If desired, you can flood the cookie inside the piped area with another color and add different sprinkles if you want, or just leave as icing.
Block Flooding
- Block flooding Valentine's cookies can be used to make freehand shapes. In this case I used it to make a red wave in a heart shaped sugar cookie, and I also used it to make a small red heart in the center of a circle shaped cookie.
- Begin by piping the edge of the design you want inside the cookie. Then flood inside the shape you made. Set the cookie aside to allow the icing to dry. You can wait 2 hours, or you can wait about 1 hour once the icing becomes matte and has a bit of a crust on it. Just be careful not to disturb the first icing. Now pipe and flood the next color of icing you want. You want to pipe right up to the edge of the dried icing you made in step one. Again, use your scribe to help move the icing to where you need it. Allow the new icing to fully harden by resting the cookie for about 2 hours.
Notes
- If you want to glaze cookies, you can use royal icing which has meringue powder. It hardens fast. But if you don't have meringue powder you can just make a glaze with icing sugar and water or milk. Just add the liquid slowly with lots of stirring until you get a consistency that you can dip the cookie in with out it all running off.
- If you are using sanding sugar as a sprinkle, it is best not to sprinkle it on right away, or the sugar dissolves a bit in the wet icing and they dye bleeds a little. I find waiting about 10-15 minutes lets the surface dry a little but it's still wet enough for the sugar to adhere to.
- Anywhere where I mention using a scribe you can sub with a toothpick. They both work.
- When you pull the scribe out of the icing to begin a new drag it is best to clean the tip each time for best results