Valentine’s Day Heart Sugar Cookies
These sugar cookies are super-simple to make, bake, and decorate. With Valentine’s day around the corner these are the perfect treat to bake in BULK. (Quigs and I know you got plenty of love to give). Using some simple heart cut-outs (and a little bit of food coloring), you can craft your own homemade valentines. I went for the classic white, pink, and red color palette that Valentine’s day has become so well associated with BUT you don’t have to do traditional, pick the colors that are special to whomever the cookies are for.
So what sets these sugar cookies apart from others? I think it’s the extra ingredient of almond flavor that I mix into the recipe. Now, to be fair, adding almond extract is not new nor is it my idea but I learned it from my dear friend Emily. When she was in high school, she worked at a bakery where she picked up a few (a lot) of baking skills, some of which she has passed along to me. That being said, she will always be better at using royal icing than I, no matter how much I try. (Hence my super basic icing on these cookies!) Maybe one day I can convince her to make a special appearance with her skills in one of these blog posts in the future.
What you need
1 cup unsalted butter (2 sticks)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1 egg
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups all purpose flour
Typically you see sugar cookie recipes calling for you to chill the dough after you mix it together, but not these. You can literally whip these up in the mixer and then roll the dough out and start cutting out shapes and before you know it, you will have sheets of cookies ready to be baked. One technique that I did was to cut out large hearts and then cut out a smaller heart in the center and replace that with a different color of dough. This method really made for cookies that just popped and were calling out to be eaten. I decided to not waste any of the leftover scraps and try making a marble effect with the dough. These might have been my favorite cookies of the bunch. Along with the marble dough, I took scraps and did some color blocking and cut out smaller heart cookies with those. To make a color block with clean lines, take a pizza cutter and cut rectangles out of your rolled out dough. Next, place different colors next to each-other with the clean lines facing each other. Slightly roll out the dough further to join the two different colors.
Once in the oven, you can begin to prepare your royal icing. I admit, I wanted to try some unique ideas with the icing this time around but after seeing what that attempt looked like on the first couple cookies I knew I needed to keep it simple. This is where Emily’s help would have been really nice. I wasn’t mad though at the simple zig-zag and dotted pattern that did come about.
Directions
Preheat oven to 350° F.
In bowl of stand mixer, cream butter and sugar until smooth, no less than 3 minutes.
Beat in extracts and egg.
In separate bowl, combine baking powder, salt, and flour. (Sift all dry ingredients if you can)
Slowly add the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. The dough WILL BE STIFF. (A stand mixer is a must for this recipe as a hand mixer wont be strong enough.)
Optional - divide dough into how many colors you want. Add the coloring and mix thoroughly into dough.
Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thick and begin cutting out shapes.
Bake for 7-10 minutes. Honestly, it really depends on the oven so check at 7 and make the call.
Cool and enjoy!
