Put your cookie press to good use outside of the traditional holiday season. Valentine’s Day Heart Spritz Cookies are soft, buttery, pretty pink, and the perfect mid-February Valentine treat!
The Colors in these Ombre Heart Spritz Cookies are so pretty, I can’t get enough of these photos! It’s easy to get these color effects and the perfect heart shapes using a cookie press. Spritz cookies are easy once you get the hang of using the press, and everyone will enjoy these vanilla flavored valentines day cookies.
This spritz cookie recipe can be used to make any shape and color of spritz cookies that you like, so make sure you save it to use all year round for every occasion! Think about making ombre spritz blue and white snowflakes or rainbow spritz cookies for a fun birthday party. You can use the pink and white ombre to make flower shaped spritz cookies too that would be fun for Mother’s day or a wedding shower.
If you like vanilla spritz cookies I think you’ll also like my soft Sugar Cookies and these Frosted Sugar Cookie Bars.
Cat Sugar Cookies are also perfect to make for Valentine’s Day.
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- Valentine’s Day Cookies! Christmas cookies are fun, but I want there to be special cookies for all the holidays! These heart shaped cookies are perfect for Valentine’s Day, Galentine’s Day, or even for a wedding or shower party.
- Easy Cookie Recipe: This spritz cookie recipe is very simple, straightforward, and uses just 7 ingredients. You’ll have the dough ready to go in just a few minutes.
- You Can Decorate Them: Let the little ones help you drizzle these valentine cookies with white chocolate and add some pink decorating sugar or sprinkles. It’s not necessary, but nobody has ever said, “hey, I wish you hadn’t added sprinkles to these cookies”, right?
Key Ingredients in Spritz Cookies
Complete list of ingredients with quantities and instructions is located in the recipe card below
- Unsalted Butter: When baking, it’s generally best to choose unsalted butter. Let the butter sit out at room temperature to soften before you start mixing the cookie dough.
- Granulated Sugar: Granulated white sugar adds sweetness and will be creamed with butter to start the cookie dough off properly.
- Egg: One large egg goes into spritz cookies. Let the egg come to room temperature as well. Cold eggs don’t mix in as well.
- Vanilla Extract: Use the best vanilla extract that you can reasonably afford. It’s so important for great cookie flavor!
- Flour and Salt: These are our dry ingredients for spritz cookies. You may notice that there is no leavener (like baking powder or baking soda). This is on purpose. You don’t want spritz cookies to puff up, because then they will lose their shape.
- Red Food Coloring: A bit of gel food coloring gives these Valentine’s cookies their pretty pink color. Wilton Gel Food coloring is my favorite.
This recipe requires a spritz Cookie Press. I have this one and find it really easy to use. You can see it in action in the photos below.
How to Make Ombre Heart Spritz Cookies
- Prepare: Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C, and line 3 half sheet size cookie sheets with ungreased parchment paper or Silpat silicone mats.
- Cream Butter and Sugar: In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter with the sugar until creamy (about 1 minute). Then add the egg and vanilla extract and beat to combine. Scrape the sides of the bowl to ensure that you mix everything well.
- Add Flour: Add the flour and salt to the bowl and mix on medium speed until just combined.
- Color: Remove 1/3 of the cookie dough to a bowl. This will be our white dough. Then add food coloring to the dough in the mixer to create a pink color. Remove half of that dough from the mixer into a bowl. Add more food coloring to the dough in the mixer to create red.
- Fill Cookie Press: Fill the cookie press with the cookie dough, starting with the white, then the pink, then the red. You can gently combine the colors if you like, or just layer them. You’ll need the heart die installed in the cookie press for these spritz.
- Make Hearts: Press out hearts on the cookie sheets.
- Bake: Bake for 8 minutes in the preheated oven. Allow cookies to cool for 5 minutes on the trays, then cool completely on a wire rack if needed. These cookies are small and don’t take much time to cool down.
Recipe Tips
- The surface of your pans matters: The trick to making Spritz Cookies is figuring out how to get them to stick to the pan! I prefer to use Silpat silicone mats when I make spritz cookies. It’s important the mat is very clean so that the cookies will stick to it and release from the cookie press. Any grease will keep them from sticking. I’ve found that sometimes parchment paper is a bit too non-stick, and the cookies are harder to press. Also, parchment is so lightweight that it moves around too much for pressing spritz.
- You may have luck using a dry, clean baking sheet without a liner too. Practice a bit and see what works best. If you need to re-use your sheet pan or Silpat to make all of the cookies, you need to wash it in between batches and then place it in the fridge to get cold before trying to press cookies on it again.
- Use Any Mixer: You can use either a Stand Mixer or a hand held mixer to make Spritz Cookie dough. If you bake a lot, you will find that having the big stand mixer can make your life a lot easier in the kitchen.
- Start with the lightest color: You can see in the images that not all of the cookies are ombre, but as we move through the three colors of dough we create a ombre effect. Start with the un-dyed dough, then add in the pink, and then the red. There’s no need to clean the press in between colors, since you want them to run together.
How to Store Spritz Cookies
These Valentine’s Day Spritz Cookies can be stored in an airtight container for up to 10 days at room temperature. You can also freeze these cookies for longer storage of up to 2 months.
Decorating Valentine’s Spritz Cookies
To make your Valentine’s cookies extra festive, drizzle them with white chocolate, or dip half of each cookie into white chocolate. If disired, sprinkle with holiday sprinkles before the chocoalte hardens.
More Delicious Cookies to Bake
- Baby Yoda Macarons
- Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies
- Banana Pudding Cookies
- Air Fryer Monster Cookies
FAQs
This depends on your oven. You can cook 2 or even three trays of cookies at one time if you have a large oven that heats very evenly. You’ll want to rotate the trays during the cook time to avoid burning. Cooking just one tray at a time is acceptable as well.
There are two reasons this could be happening. The first is that the dough is too soft. Be sure to follow the recipe to ensure you have the right balance of flour and sugar. The second reason your dough might be sticking to the cookie press is that the dough can’t stick to the sheet pan. Be sure that your pan is clean, dry, and cold.
Sure! To make your heart spritz cookies more marbled, you can mix the dough colors together a bit before adding to the press. Rather than layering the colors in three pieces, try breaking each color into a few pieces and then alternating in the press. Don’t mix them too much, or you’ll end up with all pink.
You can make the dough and store it in the refrigerator for up to 4 days before pressing the dough through the cookie press. When ready to bake, allow the dough to come to room temperature before pressing.
Enjoy making these beautiful Ombre Spritz Cookies for Valentine’s Day! Be sure to Pin the recipe to save it.
Ombre Spritz Cookies
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 cup (225g) unsalted butter softened to room temperature
- ¾ cup (150g) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 2 ¼ cups (280g) all purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- Red Food Coloring gel food coloring is best
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C. And line 3 half sheet size cookie sheets with ungreased parchment paper or silpat silicone mats (I prefer silicone mats).
- In a bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter with the sugar until creamy (1 minute).
- Add the egg and vanilla extract, and beat for 30 seconds, then with a spatula scrape off the sides and the bottom of the bowl and beat for 30 more seconds.
- Add in flour and salt, and mix on medium speed until just combined.
- Remove 1/3 of the cookie dough to a bowl, add a few drops of food coloring to the rest of the dough (I like to add food coloring with a toothpick), and mix again. Remove half of the dough to a bowl. Add more food coloring to the remaining dough to get a darker color and mix until combined.
- To the cookie press add the 3 colors of the dough, and press out hearts on the cookie sheet (if the sheet/silicone mat are greasy, the cookie won’t stick and won’t deattach from the press).
- Bake for 8 minutes in the preheated oven, allow to cool for 5-10 minutes then cool completely on a wire rack if needed (these are small thin cookies, they cool quickly).
Notes
- To Store: Store in a covered container at room temperature for up to 10 days.
- To Freeze: Freeze for up to 2 months, well wrapped in an airtight container.
- Decorate with melted white chocolate and sprinkles if desired.
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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Comments & Reviews
Cheryl says
The Valentine Spritz Cookies look yummy and so festive. I would like to make them with my grandchildren. The directions list adding salt with the flour, but there is no salt listed in the ingredient list. How much salt should be added to these spritz cookies?
Diana says
Hi Cheryl, you need half a teaspoon of salt. Thanks for the heads up, we just added it to the recipe card. Enjoy!