Make these yummy heart cookies for Valentine’s Day with a homemade cream cheese frosting. These heart shaped cookies are so fun to bake as a family, and made with our famous cream cheese sugar cookie dough. Enjoy!
Looking for the perfect sweet treat to make for Valentine’s Day this year?! Look no further than these adorably delicious cream cheese heart cookies that come complete with our irresistible cream cheese frosting.
In this post, we’ll walk you through how to make these cookies and the frosting, as well as tips and tricks for storing them, so they stay fresh-y fresh.
What You Need for Heart Cookies
You don’t need any crazy ingredients to make these cutie pie heart cookies. In fact, you only need 8 simple ingredients:
- all-purpose flour
- salt
- baking powder
- cream cheese (make sure it’s cold!)
- unsalted butter
- sugar
- vanilla extract
- an egg
See, simple! And making a batch of these heart cookies is just as easy as rounding up the ingredients.
Heart Cookies Tip & Tricks
- Don’t over mix: Make sure not to over-mix your batter as it can affect how cookies cook in the oven.
- Use a stand mixer or hand mixer: if you try to mix your cream cheese cookie dough by hand, you’ll understand why we suggest a stand mixer or hand mixer!
- Chill the dough: In step 5 of the recipe card you’ll note that we instruct to chill the dough for 30 minutes. Do. Not. Skip. This. Step. It will prevent your cookies from spreading too much!
- Freeze your cut outs: In step 7 you’ll notice that we instruct to freeze your cut outs for 15 minutes before baking. We know this is an additional annoying step, but it really helps the cookies hold their shape when baking. You won’t be disappointed!
Our Go-To Cream Cheese Frosting
Looking to whip up a batch of these heart cookies and need cream cheese frosting to go with them? Look no further! Our cream cheese frosting for sugar cookies is the perfect recipe to keep in your back pocket at all times.
When making cream cheese frosting for cookies, you want to make sure that it’s thick enough to stay, but not too thick so you can’t spread it around.
Our signature recipe is made with super simple ingredients that you probably already have on hand:
what you need for cream cheese frosting
- cream cheese
- unsalted butter
- powdered sugar
- vanilla extract
- food coloring
- salt
Try it!
Best Cream Cheese Frosting
This is the easiest most delicious cream cheese frosting for sugar cookies. In this post, we’ll teach you how to make cream cheese frosting for cookies in no time!
Make Your Frosting PINK
Once you’ve made your cream cheese frosting, it’s time to color it! White cream cheese frosting is classic but, if you’re looking for the gorgeous pink variations like the cookies in these photos, we got you!
For the color in the photos, we used the brand Americolor in the color – “True Red.” However, any kind of food coloring works. If you want to get these different shades of pink, here’s how much we used:
- light: smidgin
- medium: 1/4 drop
- dark: 1 drop
get the perfect color
When adding color to your frosting, start small because you can always add more food coloring. It’s harder to dilute the color with white frosting than it is to add more food coloring.
Storage
Let your heart cookies cool completely before decorating, and then let the frosting harden for a couple of hours before storing. After that, transfer them into a parchment paper-lined container. Line each layer of heart cookies with another piece of parchment so they don’t stick together.
If you’re planning on waiting to decorate, there is no need to line each layer of cookies with parchment paper. You can simply stack them in the container.
Seal container with its Iid, and store on the countertop for up to 3 days.
Freezer Instructions
If you’re planning to freeze your heart cookies, we recommend NOT frosting them and only freezing the cookies themselves.
To freeze, let your cookies cool completely. Then, transfer them to a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Place in the freezer for 20 minutes. This will make sure the cookies don’t stick together.
Once the cookies are semi-hardened, transfer the cookies to a large container. Seal the container with a lid and freeze for up to 3 months. You can also store them in a gallon-size plastic bag.
Heart Cookies
Ingredients
Dry
- 3.5 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
Wet
- 4 oz. cream cheese cold
- 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- 2 cups sugar
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
Instructions
- Place the flour, baking powder, and salt to a medium bowl and mix until combined. Set aside.
- Place the cold cream cheese in the bowl of a stand mixer and mix with the paddle on low until soft and lump-free, about 1 minute. Add the room temperature butter and sugar and cream just until combined. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl with a spatula well.
- Add the egg and vanilla and mix on low until completely incorporated. Scrape down the sides and bottom of the bowl again.
- Add the dry ingredients and mix on low, slowly until the flour is completely incorporated. Then stop mixing.
- Remove half of the dough and press it into a flat disk, it will be pretty soft. Wrap the disk in cling wrap, and use a rolling pin to evenly flatten the dough. Do the same thing with the other half of the dough. Then place them in the fridge for 30 minutes or until the dough is firm.
- To roll out the dough, remove one disk from the fridge and remove the cling wrap. Lightly flour your countertop as well as one side of the dough. Place the dough flour side down and lightly flour the top of the disk.
- Roll the dough to about 1/2-inch thickness. Cut with heart shaped cookie cutters and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Freeze for 15 minutes.
- Preheat the oven to 350ºF. When the cookies are frozen, place the cookie sheet in the oven and bake for 16-17 minutes, or just until the corners and edges start to brown.
- Allow cookies to cool completely on a wire rack before frosting.
My partner really enjoyed these cookies! The recipe made 38 cookies and the frosting recipe left us with enough frosting for a whole extra batch of cookies!
Best sugar cookies ever!! They are super soft and the cream cheese in the batter adds the perfect amount of tang to balance the sugar. Can’t wait to make these again!!!
AH! AMAZING! They look delicious!