Heart Shaped Valentines Cookies
Buttery shortbread hearts flavoured with rosewater and speckled with red glace cherry pieces, these romantic little Heart Shaped Valentines Cookies are a perfect treat for someone special!
💕💕💕
Inspired by my Cranberry and Pistachio Shortbread recipe, which has been very popular over Christmas, I decided to create a bespoke recipe with Valentine's Day coming up.
And what can be more romantic 💕 than shortbread with floral undertones 💐.
If you like baking with floral flavours, you may also like to try my Persian Love Cake (also perfect for Valentine's Day) or my Earl Grey and Lavender Cake. Both are truly delicious.
Jump to:
- Why make these heart-shaped cookies?
- Ingredients and Substitutions
- Instructions
- Storage
- Top Tips for perfect Rosewater and Cherry Shortbread Cookies
- Be careful with the rosewater
- Do not overwork your shortbread
- ALWAYS really chill the dough
- Reshaping your shortbread hearts once baked
- Related
- 📖 Recipe
- 💬 Comments
Why make these heart-shaped cookies?
Buttery soft shortbread ✔️
Light rosewater floral flavours ✔️
Dotted with red glace cherries ✔️
Very easy to make ✔️
Perfect Valentine's gift or treat ✔️
Great to make with children ✔️
Ingredients and Substitutions
See the Recipe card below for the exact quantities
- Unsalted butter
- Icing sugar (confectioners' sugar)
- Rosewater (culinary)
Can be replaced with culinary lavender - Plain flour
- Fine salt
- Glace cherries
- Decorations - such as any of the following:
freeze-dried raspberries, heart sprinkles, sugar nibs, white chocolate, milk chocolate or dark chocolate.
Instructions
See Recipe card for exact instructions.
Beat your butter to be sure it is soft, and then beat in your sifted icing sugar until smooth.
.
Beat in the rosewater flavouring and then add sifted flour and salt.
Mix together until the mixture just starts to come together into balls, and then add the chopped cherries.
Bring together into a ball and then roll out on a lightly floured surface.
Cut out 12 heart cookies and then refrigerate them for 45 minutes at least to set them.
Bake until golden. If the definition has been lost during baking. Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter, the next size up from the one you used to cut the cookies out and twizzle it over the cookie whilst still hot.
Melt the chocolate and make pink icing by mixing water with sifted icing sugar, adding a touch of red food colouring and a little rosewater. Decorate the cookies however you choose 💕.
Storage
Heart Shaped Valentines Cookies will keep nicely for up to a week in an airtight container at room temperature.
You can freeze the shortbread dough and bake from frozen, allowing another 7 minutes of baking time.
Also, you can freeze the cookies once baked and before decorating, should you want to decorate them at a later date.
Top Tips for perfect Rosewater and Cherry Shortbread Cookies
Be careful with the rosewater
Rosewater flavouring is quite potent stuff, so do be careful to measure it out. There is just enough in the shortbread to give a gentle floral flavour in these shortbreads, similar to the flavour level found in Turkish Delight.
Do not overwork your shortbread
To keep your shortbread light and crumbly, it is important not to knead it. Literally just press the dough into a ball, flatten and refrigerate to reset the butter.
ALWAYS really chill the dough
Shortbread contains a high quantity of butter, which means that it will melt quickly when it hits the heat of the oven and spreads out. It is absolutely vital, therefore, to refrigerate the cut-out heart cookies for at least 45 minutes before baking. Or pop them in the freezer for 20 minutes. However, if they do spread despair, see the advice below.
Reshaping your shortbread hearts once baked
If your hearts have turned into blobs once baked, never fear! Simply take a heart-shaped cookie cutter the next size up and, as soon as the cookies come out of the oven and are still hot, pop the cutter over the top and swizzle it around to redefine the heart shape.
Related
Looking for other recipes like this? Try these:
📖 Recipe
Rosewater and Cherry Shortbread Cookies
Here's what you'll need...
- Hand or stand mixer with paddle attachment or beaters fitted
- Large baking sheet preferably heavy based
- 2 Microwavable bowls
- Cling firm (plastic wrap)
- Medium sized heart cutter 6.8cm - plus one the next size up to reshape your heart cookies after baking if needed
Ingredients you'll need...
Cranberry and Pistachio Shortbread
- 225 g Unsalted butter softened (1 Cup)
- 90 g Icing sugar sifted (¾ Cup confectioner's sugar)
- 270 g Plain flour (2 Cups all purpose flour)
- ¼ teaspoon Fine salt
- 1 teaspoon Rosewater food flavouring
- 100 g Glace cherries chopped into small pieces (usually 8 pieces per average glace cherry)
Decoration
Rosewater Icing
- 150 g Icing sugar (1¼ Cups confectioner's sugar)
- ¼ teaspoon Rosewater food flavouring
- 5 tsp Cold water
- Speck red food colouring food colour paste is best to use
Chocolate Topping
- 50 g Milk chocolate chopped into small pieces (¼ Cup)
- 50 g White chocolate chopped into small pieces (¼ Cup)
Sprinkles - you can use whatever you like, I used:
- Heart sprinkles
- Nibbed sugar
- Dried raspberries
Here's what we do...
Cranberry and Pistachios Shortbread
- Line your baking sheet with greaseproof (parchment) paper.
- If using a hand mixer affix the beaters, if using a stand mixer affix the paddle attachment. Beat your softened butter a few times to ensure it is adequately soft, if it no longer sticks around the beater/paddle attachment then it is ready.
- Tip in your sifted icing sugar and beat until smooth, starting on a low setting and then moving up to medium-high. Wipe down your bowl intermittently with your spatula to ensure everything is mixed equally.
- Add your rosewater and and beat in.
- Sift your flour and salt together, then add to your beaten butter and sugar mixture and beat on a low setting until it starts to clump together in balls.
- Roll your chopped glace cherries in a little extra flour, so that they do not stick together and then add them your shortbread dough and mix in evenly.
- Bring the dough together into a ball, using you hands.
- Lightly flour your worksurface with a little extra flour and the roll out your shortbread dough into a circle of about 1½ cm in depth.
- Cut out 12 hearts. You will need to roll your dough out twice to do this. Place the hearts on place on your lined baking sheet leaving a gap of at least 1½ inches between each one.
- Refrigerate your shortbread hearts for 45 minutes, you want them cold and hard (or you can put them in the freezer for 20 minutes ).
- Heat your oven to 150°C Fan/170°C/340°F/Gas mark 3.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the rim of the shortbread is just starting to turn golden and the base is also lightly golden. If definition has been lost during baking. use a heart shaped cookie cutter the next size up from the one you used to cut the cookies out and twizzle it over the cookie whilst still hot to reshape it.
- Leave to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes and then remove the cookies to a cooling rack to fully cool before decorating.
Decorating your heart shortbreads
Rosewater Icing
- Sift your icing sugar into a small bowl and then stir in your rosewater flavouring.
- Gradually add your water until you have a fairly thick consistency.
- Mix in a speck of red food colouring to turn the icing light pink.
- Use a teaspoon to gently pour icing over your shortbread heart and then immediately sprinkle over your sprinkles.
Chocolate Topping
- Add your milk chocolate to one of your microwavable bowls and your white chocolate to your other microwavable bowl.
- Microwavable each in bouts of 10-15 seconds, stirring in-between, until fully melted. Be extra careful when melting the white chocolate as it burns easily.
- Take a teaspoon of melted chocolate and spread it over half the top of a shortbread cookie, allowing it to drip down the sides, dip the side of the cookie into the chocolate if any areas are still not covered.
- Place on your cooling rack to allow the chocolate to drip off and immediately and gently sprinkle over your sprinkles.
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