These heart cookies are the ultimate treat for Valentine’s Day! Heart shaped sugar cookies are dipped in dark chocolate and coated in festive sprinkles for a fun snack that’s perfect for classroom parties or that special someone in your life.
These heart sugar cookies taste as good as they look! They’re great for packaging up and giving as gifts and they can even be made in advance. Serve these cookies with a heart cake to celebrate all the sweethearts in your life!
Valentine’s Day will be here before we know it, and at my house we’re celebrating with these adorable yet easy to make heart cookies! I’ve taken homemade heart shaped sugar cookies and given them a dunk in dark chocolate before adding a variety of colorful sprinkles. These cookies are great for classroom favors or to give to friends and family who deserve something a little sweet. For more festive dessert inspiration, be sure to check out my list of 25 Valentine’s Day dessert recipes.
How to make heart cookies
This recipe starts with a basic sugar cookie dough, which is designed to hold its shape in the oven. The dough does need to chill before you roll it out, so plan accordingly. You can store the pre-made dough in the fridge for up to 3 days, or in the freezer for up to a month before you plan to bake your cookies.
The dough gets rolled into a sheet before the heart shapes are cut out. I used a 4 inch heart shaped cookie cutter. You can make your cookies bigger or smaller if you prefer, just adjust the bake time accordingly.
After the cookies come out of the oven, they’ll need to cool before you give them their final decorations. Sometimes if I need to plan ahead, I bake the cookies then freeze them. I simply thaw the cookies on the counter, then proceed with the chocolate dip and sprinkles from there.
You can use chocolate chips thinned out with a little shortening or dark chocolate candy melts for dipping. I often get asked why I include the shortening, the reasoning is that it helps to keep the chocolate coating thinner so that you don’t end up with a super thick layer of chocolate on your cookies.
When I make these cookies I typically use Ghirardelli Dark Melting Wafers for the chocolate dip, they’re available in the baking section of most grocery stores. The wafers melt perfectly and they taste just like real dark chocolate!
The final step is to add your Valentine’s sprinkles while the chocolate is still wet – this is a great job for the kids! I bought a few packages of sprinkles at the craft store and mixed them together to make this Valentine’s blend, but you can use whatever you like.
I typically package these heart cookies in little clear bags and tie them with a ribbon; my girls love to pass out these fun cookies to their friends at school! This Valentine’s Day, make something sweet for your loved ones like these festive treats, they’re sure to be appreciated by all!
More sweets for your sweetie
- Brownie Berry Dessert Pizza
- Microwave Caramels
- Cheesecake Stuffed Strawberries
- Chocolate Hazelnut Cupcakes
- Berry Chantilly Cake
Heart Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3 cups all purpose flour
- 8 ounces semisweet chocolate chips or dark chocolate candy melts
- 1 tablespoon shortening only use if using chocolate chips, do not add shortening to candy melts
- 1/2 cup Valentine's Day sprinkles
Instructions
- In the bowl of a mixer, beat the butter and sugar until smooth, about 2 minutes.
- Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Add the vanilla and salt, then slowly mix in the flour until thoroughly combined.
- Remove the dough from the bowl. Place the dough on a large piece of plastic wrap and shape it into a disc. Wrap the plastic wrap around the dough and chill for at least 1 hour, or up to 1 day before you plan to bake your cookies.
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a sheet pan with parchment paper or a nonstick baking mat.
- Divide the dough in half. Re-wrap one half of the dough and place it in the fridge. Roll the remaining dough into a 1/2 inch thick rectangle.
- Using a 4 inch heart shaped cookie cutter, cut out as many shapes as you can from the dough.
- Re-roll the dough and repeat the process until you've filled your first baking sheet. Cookies should be spaced 1 1/2 inches apart on the sheet.
- Place the pan of cookies in the fridge and chill for 20 minutes.
- Bake for 12-15 minutes or until cookies are set and the edges are just barely turning brown.
- Cool the cookies completely.
- Repeat the same process with the other half of the dough that you previously put in the refrigerator.
- Heat the chocolate chips + shortening OR candy melts (no shortening needed) in the microwave in 30 second increments until melted. Stir until smooth.
- Dip half of each cookie into the chocolate, tapping against the bowl to remove the excess. Place the cookies on a sheet of parchment paper and quickly add the sprinkles onto the wet chocolate. Let set completely.
Notes
- Dough can be frozen for up to one month; thaw in the refrigerator before using.
- Plain cookies can be frozen for up to one month, then thawed and dipped in chocolate and sprinkles.
I’ve looked through many of your cookie recipes and while I enjoy YOUR comments, find that your instructions appear to be clear and simple to follow, your photos are beautiful, etc., unfortunately I find your ‘Reviews’ section to be more of a ‘Comment’ Section. Ninety-nine percent are just ‘comments’ about how they look, how much someone is looking FORWARD to TRYING/MAKING them, etc., etc., there are VERY FEW REAL REVIEWS by people who have ACTUALLY TESTED OUT THE RECIPE which makes it so they can give an honest REVIEW regarding any problems they might have found or even how much they enjoyed working with the dough, maybe some things they might do differently, items they might add or subtract, and ESPECIALLY the end results (re: the taste, how easy/difficult they were to make, would they make them again and did they like /love them). THOSE are REVIEWS . How can anyone possibly be giving a rating on a recipe they’ve never made/tried?? Maybe you should consider having a separate section for ‘comments’ about how ‘yummy they LOOK’, how pretty they LOOK, etc. and have another section for REAL REVIEWS where people could get some true feedback and ratings about a recipe they’ve actually made. I’ve seen this many times on other sites but I must say I don’t think any of them have been so full of unhelpful ‘comments’ with extremely few ‘REAL REVIEWS”. Maybe I will test out one of your recipes so I can find out all the information I’d love to hear from others BEFORE I take the time, purchase the ingredients and put in all the effort especially because I’m disabled so most of the things other people take for granted are much more difficult and take a lot more time for me to do just to make cookies……even small things most people take for granted but I truly enjoy baking and even though I’m only middle aged I know that my days for being able to do such things are very limited so I’d prefer to use my time and energy on recipes that others have actually tested out and then given a proper ‘Review’. I don’t want this to come off sounding the wrong way……I just wish people would know the difference between a ‘Comment’ and a ‘Review’ and wouldn’t give a recipe they’ve never tried making a ‘Rating/’Review’……especially a FIVE star Rating with a ‘ Comment’ expressing how yummy they LOOK and how much they’re LOOKING FORWARD to making/trying them!!!! Maybe I’ve seen too many recipes where people who never made or attempted to make a recipe yet ‘jumped the gun’ and raved about how great it looked/sounded, that the pictures made their mouths water and then spent the time, money, etc. (or convinced someone else to) wind up being quite disapointed with the final result because it turned out differently then they had envisioned yet if they had been able to read REAL REVIEWS they may have had a better understanding of what to expect or how to make some ‘tweaks’ to suit their taste if they read Reviews from a number of different people who had tested the recipe it might’ve made all the difference. I hope this will be taken in the spirit in which it’s intended…….as something that will help your site and draw more people to it as I’ve heard other people express this situation as their number one peeve and has made them look elsewhere for recipes. I wish you much luck and if I am able to give one of your recipes a test run I promise to give it an honest review as the pictures do make them look VERY enticing. 🙂
Thanks for your suggestions! My recipes get circulated in so many different ways, unfortunately it’s not always easy to put together a section for people who have tested the recipe. Often times people will find the recipe on Pinterest or Facebook, and they’ll use the Pinterest “tried it” function to leave a review there, or they’ll leave a comment on Facebook saying they tried the recipe. In fact, I’ve found that most of the time people leave their reviews directly on Pinterest and don’t take the time to come back to this site to leave a review here. If you search my recipes on Pinterest you’ll find hundreds of people that have tried my recipes and they often leave notes as to things they’ve changed and post photos of the final result. I hope that helps!
Sugar cookies have always been one of my favorite cookies. I love how you decorated these heart ones. So pretty
These heart-shaped cookies are so cute. Also so appropriate for Valentine’s day, sure to melt the heart of the toughest Valentine.They must sure taste as lovely as they look.
Oh yes! this is so cute! I could actually make these. The decoration is cute and also easy which I like because my decorating skills are not the best haha
These look SO cute! I’m such a sucker for a good sugar cookie.
My son would absolutely love these sweet treats! I might make this with my daughter who love to bake.
Oh wow. This is taking heart shaped cookies to the next level! They turned out so beautiful and I am positive they are delicious too. I am saving the recipe and hopefully I can pull this one off as perfect as yours.
These Valentine’s Day cookies look delicious. Love that only the corner is dipped in chocolate then drizzled with sprinkles. I’m not a huge fan of sprinkles so these are perfect for me! What a fun treat!
These are so great for Valentine’s Day! I love doing sugar cookies, and the half dipped in chocolate is a simple way to decorate.
I love a good sugar cookie, dipping them in chocolate and adding sprinkles makes them even more appealing. I need to ask my Kindergartner what kind of Valentine’s Day treats she wants to bring to school.
This is a really creative recipe. I would love to make these.
I have been baking a lot lately and these cookies are now next on my hit list, I will skip the dark chocolate part as I am not a fan. Thanks for the inspiration
dipping the cookies on one side is a easy and pretty way to decorate any cookie. Plus the kids can help dip and add the sprinkles.
Oh how absolutely amazing do these look, I love how simple they seem to make, but like they would be perfect to have with a cup of tea!
These look lovely! I love sugar cookies all by themselves, the chocolate on these makes them totally irresistible and a great choice for Valentine’s Day.
These look lovely! I love sugar cookies all by themselves, the chocolate on these makes them totally irresistible and a great choice for Valentine’s Day.
Nothing like a simple sugar cookie recipe. It’s versatile and we typically have all of the ingredients on hand. These 1/2 dipped cookies look like the ones at my favorite bakery and I bet they’re pretty tasty too. I just may forego a visit to the bakery this year and bake homemade cookies myself to share with my coworkers. Thanks for the recipe.
These look like some fabulous cookies. I need to make some for Valentine’s Day soon. Or heck, I’ll just make some to eat. You don’t need a holiday for cookies!
Those cookies are so pretty. I was looking for some fun cookies to make for my boys as an after school snack and these are IT 🙂
Your heart shaped cookies look delicious! I love that you dipped the cookies in the dark chocolate. Yum! I made some Red Velvet Heart Shaped Cookies over the weekend.