Valentine’s Day Cookie Decorating: Easy heart-shaped cookies for Valentine’s Day – perfect for the beginner.
Originally published in 2016 – Updated in 2023.
You’ve followed along on my cookie decorating journey, from my first attempt at decorating sugar cookies. You’ve been so encouraging, and I so appreciate it. I’m just a regular gal who wanted to decorate some cookies, knowing I’d probably never be as good as the professionals out there.
But with my admittance of not being the best at this… I’m hoping you can find the courage to decorate your own cookies too!
It’s possible that I’m going backwards, in my cookie decorating skills. I’m not going to lie. I watched SweetAmbs on Facebook lately, and when she posted her Valentine’s Day Heart Cookies, I thought,
Oh I can SO do that.
I even had people share the video on Fantabulosity’s Facebook page, saying,
Jessica! Look! You should try these next!
For heaven’s sake… others even had faith in me.
But just so you can see… not all of my cookies turned out great. So practice is still necessary for me. HOWEVER…
Although they’re FAR from perfect, I did have some luck with the way most of them turned out. So… that told me that heart-shaped cookies, with a few simple designs, would be a good Valentine’s Day Cookie idea, for a beginner.
Don’t look too close, or you’ll potentially find more “pinterest fails,” and let me just bask in the “accomplishment,” for a moment. 🙂
Notes about what you’ll need:
- Sugar Cookies: I know that you may have your own favorite sugar cookie recipe, or you may even buy sugar cookies already in the shape of hearts. But I still want to share that the sugar cookie recipe I use for these and all of my sugar cookie decorating adventures, is this easy sugar cookie recipe. I also used that sugar cookie recipe, leaving them round sugar cookies with Nutella on top!
- Royal Icing: When I decorate, I love buying the royal icing that I can just add water to, and then whatever colors I’m looking for, to keep things super easy. This is my favorite royal icing mix. However, you can use your favorite recipe if you have one!
- Food Coloring: When it comes to coloring the royal icing, I like to use gel food coloring.
I’ll never be as good at SweetAmbs, but she sure is fun to follow to get ideas from.
Valentine Heart Cookie Decorating Video
Here’s a quick video on how I decorated these heart cookies with royal icing! I hope it’s helpful and if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to drop a comment below!
Plus, see the recipe card below with more details and how-to!
Now, if you’re still a little intimidated at decorating cookies with royal icing, you may want to consider using fondant for your cookies, like we used in these ice cream sugar cookies!
More Valentine’s Day Ideas
How to Decorate Heart Sugar Cookies
Equipment
- Heart Shaped Cookie Cutters We like these heart cookie cutters
- Scriber Needle Or toothpick will work too. Here's my favorite scriber tool.
- Piping Tip .1 or .15 or similar (Small is best for fine detail decorating.)
- 3 Piping Bags
Ingredients
- 24 Heart Shaped Sugar Cookies This is my favorite sugar cookie recipe! Or your favorite recipe, or storebought cookies
- Royal Icing This is my favorite royal icing mix.
- (Pink, Red, White) Gel Food Coloring Here's where you can get gel food coloring
Instructions
- If making your own heart-shaped sugar cookies or buying storebought cookies, you'll need 24. cookies This sugar cookie recipe makes 24 cookies and is delicious! (Make sure to allow the cookies to fully cool before decorating.)
Decorating the Heart Cookies
- To get the red and pink royal icing, you'll need to separate the white royal icing in to 3 separate small bowls. Using red food coloring, add a drop to one bowl of royal icing and stir to combine. If not as red as you'd like, add one drop, until the icing reaches the desired color.Repeat in another bowl for the pink icing. Leave the third bowl white.
- Decide which style of cookie you'll be decorating first.
- Preferably, have three different piping bags with a .1 piping tip or .15 tip. (You may have to switch them out if you only have one – so doing as many cookies with each color, one at a time, may be helpful.)
- Fill each piping bag, making one red, one pink, and one white piping bag.
- Begin decorating cookies as shown in the video, outlining the heart first, then filling the centers and decorating with desired design.
- Allow cookies to "dry" making sure they're sitting out in a single layer, before storing.
Video
Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered estimates. Actual nutritional content will vary with brands used, measuring methods, portion sizes and more.
Nicole says
Would you be willing to share your cookie recipe?
Jessica says
Oh my goodness! I can’t believe I haven’t given this to you yet! I’m so sorry! I plan to create a post on this recipe VERY soon, but I’ll shoot you an email with it, in hopes that you get it sooner!! 🙂
Nicole says
Thank you!! Id appreciate it. I’m not crafty and at all but have my daughter’s first birthday coming up and would love to try some cookies!
Brandy says
Hi! Super cute cookies! Do you ever share your cookie recipe? Thanks!
Jessica says
Hi Brandy! For sure! You can find the sugar cookie recipe that I use all of the time here: Easy Sugar Cookies