Valentine Sugar Cookie Recipe

This Valentine sugar cookie recipe is our favorite! Learn how to create your own colorful cookies with custom messages.

We had so much fun at Christmas with our Elf Quote sugar cookies that we had to do it again! I figured Valentine’s Day would be the perfect opportunity to get wordy on some heart-shaped cookies, so the Valentine Sugar Cookie was born!

Even More Valentine’s Day Recipes

Psst — don’t stop here! We’ve got a whole bunch of recipes that are perfect for Valentine’s Day.

• Valentine’s Day Snack // Conversation Heart Popcorn
• White Chocolate Dipped Rice Krispies Valentine Treats
• Chai Spice Sugar Cookies with Vanilla Bean Drizzle
• How to Make a Candy Cake
• Mandarin Granola Parfait
• Make Candy Cupcakes for a Valentine’s Day Party
• Hot Chocolate Cupcakes

Valentine Sugar Cookies

We had the most fun creating this Valentine sugar cookie recipe! It’s hilarious to think up your own phrases to put on the front of these cookies.

I love that they look like conversation hearts. It’s super fun to be able to customize them with your own words. Or to add special words just meant for your Valentine!

And just in case Valentine’s Day isn’t your thing, we made a few cranky ones. Because “Bye Felicia” should definitely be on a conversation heart somewhere in the world.

How to Decorate Valentine Sugar Cookies

Another great thing about this Valentine sugar cookie recipe? The decorating happens before you bake them! So they come out of the oven done and ready to go.

That being said, if you’d like to decorate your sugar cookies in a different way, I’ve got you covered.

You can simply skip the letter stamping part of the instructions below and add your own decorations or toppings afterward.

This vanilla bean glaze would be delicious drizzled over the top.

Or you could give them the white chocolate and sprinkles treatment, like we did with our Valentine treats.

Our Favorite Sugar Cookie Food Coloring

If you’d like to replicate our Valentine sugar cookie colors, use the food coloring on the ingredients list below.

Separate the dough into quarters. We colored each quarter differently with these drop amounts:

• pale pink = 1 drop pink
• bright pink = 6 drops pink
• lavender = 4 drops purple
• blue = 1 drop green, 4 drops blue

Work the drops into the individual quarters of dough, and then let them chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before rolling and stamping.

Ingredients You’ll Need

• 1 cup soft unsalted butter
• 1 large egg
• 2 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 3 cups flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Additional Tools and Supplies

• cookie imprinting set
• neon food coloring
• rolling pin
• round cookie cutters

Make and Color the Dough

1. Start by creaming together the sugar, butter, and cream cheese. Once light and fluffy, mix in the egg and vanilla.
2. In a separate bowl, mix together all dry ingredients. Slowly incorporate them into the butter mixture until they’re thoroughly combined.
3. Once your dough is made, separate it into as many sections as you’d like different colors of cookie. We separated into four sections. Color each different section of cookie with some food coloring. To create similar colors to ours, use the chart above.
4. Drop the coloring onto the ball of dough that you’re working with and knead it until the coloring is evenly spread. Do this with all colors. Once the colors are mixed, lightly flatten each dough ball and wrap it in its own individual plastic wrap. Chill all dough for at least 1 hour; we let ours chill overnight.

How to make Valentine Sugar Cookies

1. Once the dough is chilled, remove it from the refrigerator about 5 minutes before you plan on rolling it out to soften a bit. Prep your baking pans with a bit of nonstick spray and set your oven to 350. Flour your surface and rolling pin generously. Roll one color of dough out to about 1/4″ thick. Cut out your cookie shapes and place them on the baking sheet. (We strongly recommend putting them on the baking sheet before stamping the letters into them!)
2. With your cookies cut out, gather your letters. Stamp the letters onto the cookies either one at a time or by sliding them onto the frame of your imprinting set and stamping all at once. For this project, I found that one letter at a time yielded a better result. One tip: start with whichever letter will be in the center of your cookie and work your way out, so you don’t end up with too much or too little room on the end of your line after you start stamping.
3. Stamp out all of your messages and place the Valentine sugar cookies in the oven to bake! The recipe calls for 8-12 minutes in the oven but we baked ours for about 6 minutes. Just keep a close eye on them, as they’re pretty delicate and will burn easily.

Enjoy!

This would actually be a super fun thing to do at a Valentine’s (or Galentine’s!) party. You could do it with kids, too — set up the Valentine sugar cookies and let them stamp words to their hearts’ content.

Hope you try this Valentine sugar cookie recipe! If you do, don’t forget to rate the recipe below! xoxo

Valentine Sugar Cookie Recipe

Yield: 24 cookies

Prep Time: 1 hour

Cook Time: 12 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 12 minutes

This conversation heart Valentine sugar cookie recipe is our go-to! The dough holds its shape perfectly in the oven, and the cookie stamp technique makes them extra fun.

Print

Ingredients

• 1 stick room temp unsalted butter
• 1 large egg
• 2 oz cream cheese, room temp
• 1 c sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 3 c flour
• 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• neon food coloring

Instructions

1. Start by creaming together the sugar, butter, and cream cheese. Once light and fluffy, mix in the egg and vanilla.
2. In a separate bowl, mix together all dry ingredients. Slowly incorporate them into the butter mixture until they're thoroughly combined.
3. Once your dough is made, separate it into as many sections as you'd like different colors of cookie. We separated into four sections. Color each different section of cookie with some food coloring. To create similar colors to ours, use the chart below
4. Drop the coloring onto the ball of dough that you're working with and knead it until the coloring is evenly spread. Do this with all colors. Once the colors are mixed, lightly flatten each dough ball and wrap it in its own individual plastic wrap. Chill all dough for at least 1 hour; we let ours chill overnight.
5. Once the dough is chilled, remove it from the refrigerator about 5 minutes before you plan on rolling it out to soften a bit. Prep your baking pans with a bit of nonstick spray and set your oven to 350. Flour your surface and rolling pin generously. Roll one color of dough out to about 1/4" thick. Cut out your cookie shapes and place them on the baking sheet. (We strongly recommend putting them on the baking sheet before stamping the letters into them!)
6. With your cookies cut out, gather your letters. Stamp the letters onto the cookies either one at a time or by sliding them onto the frame of your imprinting set and stamping all at once. For this project, I found that one letter at a time yielded a better result. One tip: start with whichever letter will be in the center of your cookie and work your way out, so you don't end up with too much or too little room on the end of your line after you start stamping.
7. Stamp out all of your messages and place the cookies in the oven to bake! The recipe calls for 8-12 minutes in the oven but we baked ours for about 6 minutes. Just keep a close eye on them, as they're pretty delicate and will burn easily.

Notes

If you'd like to replicate our Valentine sugar cookie colors, use the food coloring on the ingredients list.

Separate the dough into quarters. We colored each quarter differently with these drop amounts:

• pale pink = 1 drop pink
• bright pink = 6 drops pink
• lavender = 4 drops purple
• blue = 1 drop green, 4 drops blue

Work the drops into the individual quarters of dough, and then let them chill in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour before rolling and stamping.

Photos by Scot Woodman