You will have so much fun baking and decorating these delicious sugar cookies for Valentine’s Day! These Valentine Cookies are dressed up like cute cats using a rich buttercream frosting.
Valentine’s Day is such a fun excuse to make decorated sugar cookies! Christmas Cookies tend to get all the cut-out cookie attention, but it’s a great idea to make these cookies in February for the holiday that celebrates Love.
Kids will love helping to make these Valentine cookies, and they are perfect for taking to school Valentine’s Day parties. Add your Cat Cookies to cute gift boxes and tie them up with bows to give heartfelt gifts to anyone you’d like.
Make these M&M Brownie Cookies with pink and red candies to pack up with your valentine sugar cookies. The rich chocolate is perfect for this decadent holiday. Want a recipe that’s a bit easier? Make Frosted Sugar Cookie Bars instead.
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Why You’ll Love These Valentine Cookies
- Fun and Unique Decorations: I bet you won’t see many other Valentine’s cats cookies this year! While you can decorate these cookies however you like, I really like how this theme turned out. The cat puns, the heart paw prints, and the small hearts come together well and are super cute.
- Soft and Chewy Cookies: These cut outs are soft rather than crunchy. They are also nice and thick, which makes them perfect for gifting.
- Simple Buttercream Frosting: It’s not hard to make buttercream frosting for sugar cookies. Just three ingredients and some food coloring and you’ll be making some delicious and attractive cookies.
- Step By Step Baking Instructions: I want you to finish this recipe feeling really good about the valentine cookies you made, so I’m giving you easy instructions each step of the way.
- A Whole List of Cat Valentine Puns: Read further, I have a whole list of funny cat themed valentine’s sayings for you to add to your cookies!
Key Ingredients
Complete list of ingredients with quantities and instructions is located in the recipe card below
For the Cookies:
- Unsalted Butter: For this recipe, you’ll want to soften the butter until it just starts to melt. I like to use the microwave at 10-second intervals until it looks like the photo above – partially melted and partially still solid.
- Granulated Sugar: You can’t make a sugar cookie without some of this!
- Eggs: Choose large sized eggs for baking, and let them sit out at room temperature before mixing them in. This helps to create smoother and better mixed cookie dough.
- Vanilla Extract: The flavor of cookies and all the best baked goods comes from good quality vanilla extract.
- Flour, Salt, Baking Soda, and Baking Powder: These ingredients make up our dry mix, and are the bulk of the cookie dough. A combination of both baking soda and baking powder gives these cutout cookies a bit of lift, but won’t make them puff up so much that they lose their shape.
For the Buttercream Icing:
- Unsalted Butter: Again, very soft, almost melted butter is the perfect consistency for making buttercream for cookies.
- Confectioner’s Sugar and Vanilla: Powdered or confectioner’s sugar is also sometimes called icing sugar.
- Food Coloring: You can use the colors that you like for decorating your cookies. I used pink, black, and tan gel food colors for making these cat cookies.
Find the best recipe for Royal Icing for Cookies here if you prefer to use that on your Cat Cookies!
How to Make Valentine Cookies
These cut out sugar cookies are easy to make with these step by step instructions.
- Beat: In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until smooth. You can do this using a hand mixer, or with a stand mixer if you have one. Add in the eggs and vanilla and continue beating until light and fluffy. In all, this should take about 3-4 minutes.
- Mix Dry Ingredients: In a separate medium sized bowl, stir together the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.
- Add Dry to Wet: Add the dry ingredients to the bowl with the wet ingredients and beat with the mixer until well combined. The dough should start to stick together.
- Prepare: Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set it aside. Be sure to have an open surface available for rolling out the dough. Sprinkle the surface with flour.
- Roll and Cut: Roll the cookie dough out on the prepared surface to 3/8 inch (9.5mm) thickness. Use cookie cutters to cut shapes from the dough in circles, squares, and hearts. Carefully place each cut out cookie onto the parchment-lined baking sheet.
- Freeze: Place the tray of cookies into the freezer for 20 minutes to firm up the dough. Preheat the oven to 350°F/177°C.
- Bake: Line a second baking tray with parchment paper. Transfer some of the frozen cookies to this sheet, leaving 2 inches in between them. Bake the cookies, one tray at a time, in a preheated oven for 15-17 minutes, or until the edges are just slightly brown.
- Cool: Allow cookies to cool for 5 minutes on the baking tray, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.
- Make Buttercream Frosting: In a large bowl, beat together butter, confectioner’s sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy.
- Color and prepare frosting: Separate the icing into four bowls. Leave one white, and add food coloring to the others to get your desired shades of pink, black, and tan. Transfer the frosting to piping bags (no icing tips needed!) and tie or clip the ends of the bags.
- Cut Bags: Use scissors to cut small openings into the tips of each icing bag. For the background colors, you can cut larger holes than the detail colors.
- Ice Cookies: Start by filling in the backgrounds of each cookie using your desired icing colors. You can leave the icing with ridges, or use a small spatula to smooth the icing out. Continue decorating the cookies to resemble my examples here.
Recipe Tips
- Freeze the Cookies! This step is very important. If you don’t chill the cutout dough in the freezer for at least twenty minutes the cookies may spread out too much when baking.
- This recipe makes thick, chewy, sturdy cut-out cookies. You can roll them out thinner if you prefer crispier cookies, but you will need to reduce the baking time. I get evenly rolled cookie dough, you can use a rolling pin like this one that has thickness rings built in.
- I suggest using gel food coloring for tinting the frosting. This set of gel colors should last you a long time as a little bit goes a long way.
- Don’t want to do the detailed icing? These cookies will be delicious with buttercream icing and valentine’s sprinkles instead!
How to Store Valentine Sugar Cookies with Buttercream
These Valentine cookies can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container for up to three days, or in the fridge for up to one week. Store cookies in a single layer to avoid them sticking together.
Valentine’s Day Cat Puns
Do you need a few more wordy ideas to add to your valentine cookies? Look no further for excellent cat valentine cookie puns!
- You Are Purr-fect
- You are Paw-some
- Smitten Kitten
- Feline Good
- I Love Mew
- You’re Purretty
- Meow + You = Furrever
- I <3 You: Fur Reals
- Ur The Cat’s Meow
More Fun Cookie Recipes to Bake
- Banana Pudding Cookies
- Air Fryer Monster Cookies
- Soft and Chewy Sugar Cookies
- Ombre Heart Spritz Cookies
- Valentine Whoopie Pies
FAQs
No, the butter to sugar ratio in the frosting recipe makes these cookies safe to leave out at room temperature for up to three days.
This sugar cookie dough recipe can be frozen for later use. I recommend cutting out your shapes and then freezing them after allowing them to freeze on a tray first. Then you can bake them right away from the freezer.
Buttercream icing isn’t as sturdy as royal icing. That said, you can bag these cookies, but you should handle them very gently to avoid smudging the decoration. Keep them in the fridge as much as possible to keep the icing hard, and do not stack them on top of each other.
Happy Valentine’s Day! Enjoy your purr-etty kitty Valentine’s Cookies with your family this year.
Valentine’s Day Cat Sugar Cookies
Equipment
- Pipping bag
- Cookie Cutters
Ingredients
Sugar Cookies
- 1 cup (227g, 2 sticks) unsalted butter slightly melted
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs large
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 3 cups (420g) all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
Buttercream Icing
- 2 cups (454g, 4 sticks) unsalted butter slightly melted
- 5 cups confectioner's sugar
- 1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
- gel food coloring as needed
Instructions
Sugar Cookies
- In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until smooth. You can do this using a hand mixer, or with a stand mixer if you have one. Add in the eggs and vanilla and continue beating until light and fluffy. In all, this should take about 3-4 minutes.
- In a separate medium sized bowl, stir together the flour, salt, baking soda, and baking powder.
- Add the dry ingredients to the bowl with the wet ingredients and beat with the mixer until well combined. The dough should start to stick together.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside. Be sure to have an open surface available for rolling out the dough. Sprinkle the surface with flour.
- Roll the cookie dough out on the prepared surface to 3/8 inch (9.5mm) thickness. Use cookie cutters to cut shapes from the dough in circles, squares, and hearts. Carefully place each cut out cookie onto the parchment lined baking sheet.
- Place the tray of cookies into the freezer for 20 minutes to firm up the dough. Preheat the oven to 350°F/177°C.
- Line a second baking tray with parchment paper. Transfer some of the frozen cookies to this sheet, leaving 2 inches in between them. Bake the cookies, one tray at a time, in a preheated oven for 15-17 minutes, or until the edges are just slightly brown.
- Allow cookies to cool for 5 minutes on the baking tray, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely before frosting.
Buttercream
- In a large bowl, beat together butter, confectioner's sugar, and vanilla until light and fluffy.
- Separate the icing into four bowls. Leave one white, and add food coloring to the others to get your desired shades of pink, black, and tan. Transfer the frosting to piping bags (no icing tips needed!) and tie or clip the ends of the bags.
- Use scissors to cut small openings into the tips of each icing bag. For the background colors you can cut larger holes than the detail colors.
- Start by filling in the backgrounds of each cookie using your desired icing colors. You can leave the icing with ridges, or use a small spatula to smooth the icing out. Continue decorating the cookies to resemble cat faces, hearts, and sentiments.
Notes
- To Store: These Valentine cookies can be stored at room temperature in an airtight container for up to three days, or in the fridge for up to one week. Store cookies in a single layer to avoid them sticking together.
- Be sure to freeze the cookies after cutting out shapes. This keeps them from spreading during baking.
- If the dough seems too sticky, add more flour while rolling.
- This recipe makes thick cutout cookies. You can make more cookies if you make them thinner, but they will need less time in the oven.
Nutrition
This website provides approximate nutrition information for convenience and as a courtesy only. Nutrition data is gathered primarily from the USDA Food Composition Database, whenever available, or otherwise other online calculators.
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