These heart shaped strawberry shortbread cookies are made with freeze dried strawberries for a fun, pink Valentine's Day dessert! Both adults and kids will love these cookies and the recipe makes more than enough to share.
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Why You'll Love These Cookies!
These strawberry shortbread cookies are an easy fun treat for Valentine's Day! You could also turn them into heart shaped linzer cookies by filling with strawberry jam!
- Delish with or without the glaze!
- Super easy to make and decorate!
- They're light, buttery, and not too sweet.
- A perfect garnish for strawberry cupcakes!
You might also like these heart shaped linzer cookies or these strawberry macarons!
Ingredient Notes
These heart shaped cookies use my classic easy shortbread cookie recipe with just a couple small changes! It’s buttery and crumbly without being too dry and dipped in a sweet glaze to balance the flavor.
Aside from butter, powdered sugar, and flour, the only main ingredient you need is freeze dried strawberries!
Freeze dried strawberry powder - I like to buy freeze dried strawberries already in powdered form, but you can easily make it yourself! Just add about ½ cup of freeze dried strawberries to a food processor and grind until you have a fine powder.
How to Make Strawberry Shortbread
Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the softened butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy.
Then add in the vanilla extract and mix until fully combined.
Mix in the flour, strawberry powder, and salt until just combined. The dough should come together into a soft but not sticky ball.
Divide in half and press the dough into discs. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight (or a minimum of at least 2 hours).
Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to your desired thickness (I like between ¼ and ½ inch thick). Then cut out the cookies into your desired shapes.
For these heart shaped shortbread cookies, I used these heart cookie cutters. But you can use whatever cookie cutters you want! This recipe makes about 40 heart cookies in various sizes, but will make more or less depending on the cookie cutters you use.
Place the heart cookies 1-2 inches apart on your lined baking sheet. Place the baking sheet in the fridge or freezer for a minimum of 20 minutes before baking. This ensures the cookies keep their shape.
While the cookies are chilling, preheat your oven to 350°F.
Bake for 8-12 minutes or until the edges are set. Bake on the middle rack of the oven and rotate the pan halfway through baking for the best results.
Let the strawberry shortbread cookies cool on the baking sheet for 2-3 minutes, then remove and let them finish cooling on a cooling rack.
To make the glaze, whisk together the powdered sugar, strawberry powder, and milk in a small bowl, until smooth. The glaze should be runny.
Dip the tops of the cooled strawberry cookies in the glaze and place back on the cooling rack. Then sprinkle with crushed freeze dried strawberries if desired. After about 20 minutes the glaze will harden.
Tips for Perfect Cookies
Measure your flour correctly! It's most accurate to use a kitchen scale, but if you're measuring by volume you want to spoon and level! Fluff up the flour a bit with a spoon, and then spoon flour into the measuring cup. Once it's overflowing, use the back of a knife to level it off. Don't ever pack flour into the measuring cup or you'll end up with way too much! Improperly measured flour can lead to dry, crumbly cookies that don't spread.
Make sure your oven is the proper temperature! Use an oven thermometer to make sure your oven is exactly 350°F. If the oven is too cold, the cookies will spread too much and if it's too hot they centers won't bake all the way through. For example, my oven is about 20 degrees off. So I have to set the oven to 370°F in order to get it to bake at 350°F.
Use a lightweight, light colored baking sheet for best results! Believe it or not, a lighter pan makes the cookies bake more slowly than a dark pan, which helps keep them from spreading too much. My favorite pans for baking cookies are:
You also want to use either parchment paper or silicone mats on your cookie sheet to help keep the cookies from spreading.
Bake the cookies one sheet at a time, on the center rack. This will ensure all your cookies cook evenly and the bottoms don't burn. Then let the cookie sheet cool completely between batches. This ensures the cookies cook evenly and don't spread too much by being put on a hot pan.
Always under-bake the cookies! If you slightly under-bake the cookies (so the centers are still soft when you remove them from the oven), they'll stay soft and chewy for days!
Do the cookie scoot! In order to get perfectly round cookies, use a large cookie cutter to gently scoot them around as soon as they come out of the oven!
Recipe FAQ's
Chilling the cookie dough allows the flour to hydrate a bit and ensures the butter is super cold. This keeps your cookies from spreading too much and completely flattening out. It also helps keep the heart shape!
You can store these cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
Yes! You can freeze either the dough or the baked cookies! To freeze the dough, wrap tightly and then place in a freezer safe bag for 2-3 months. Let thaw in the fridge overnight before using. Baked shortbread cookies can be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months (I like to freeze them before decorating with the glaze).
Tips for Success!
For best results I always recommend using weight measurements (especially when baking) because it's the most accurate. Kitchen scales are super affordable and also reduce the number of dishes you have to do! However, all my recipes also include US customary measurements for convince. Use this chart to convert measurements for common ingredients!
Substitutions: In all my recipes, I've included substitutions that I know will work, but I cannot guarantee results if you substitute ingredients that I have not recommended. [For example, granulated sugar and honey are indeed both sweeteners but they have very different properties so they can not always be swapped 1:1. Using honey in a cookie recipe that calls for granulated sugar will yield a giant mess.] In the recipe card you'll find links to the specific ingredients/brands that I use.
A note on salt: I almost exclusively use Diamond Crystal Kosher Salt because it's the best all-purpose salt for cooking and baking. If you're not using kosher salt, consult this handy guide for a conversion chart! When in doubt, if you're using table salt just reduce the amount by half for baked goods. When cooking, I prefer to under-salt because you can always add more! If you've over-salted, adding a little bit of acid (like lemon juice) can help.
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Recipe Card
Heart Shaped Strawberry Shortbread Cookies
Special Equipment
Ingredients
Shortbread
- 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- ¼ cup freeze dried strawberry powder
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
Glaze
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon freeze dried strawberry powder
- 2-4 tablespoons milk, as needed
- freeze dried strawberries, optional for topping
Instructions
Shortbread
- Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the softened butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy.
- Then add in the vanilla extract and mix until fully combined.
- Mix in the flour, strawberry powder, and salt until just combined. The dough should come together into a soft but not sticky ball.
- Divide in half and press the dough into discs. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight (or a minimum of at least 2 hours).
- Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to your desired thickness (I like between ¼ and ½ inch thick). Then cut out the cookies into your desired shapes.
- For these heart shaped shortbread cookies, I used these heart cookie cutters. But you can use whatever cookie cutters you want! This recipe makes about 40 heart cookies in various sizes, but will make more or less depending on the cookie cutters you use.
- Place the heart cookies 1-2 inches apart on your lined baking sheet. Place the baking sheet in the fridge or freezer for a minimum of 20 minutes before baking. This ensures the cookies keep their shape.
- While the cookies are chilling, preheat your oven to 350°F.
- Bake for 8-12 minutes or until the edges are set. Bake on the middle rack of the oven and rotate the pan halfway through baking for the best results.
- Let the strawberry shortbread cookies cool on the baking sheet for 2-3 minutes, then remove and let them finish cooling on a cooling rack.
Glaze
- To make the glaze, whisk together the powdered sugar, strawberry powder, and milk in a small bowl, until smooth. The glaze should be runny.
- Dip the tops of the cooled strawberry cookies in the glaze and place back on the cooling rack. Then sprinkle with crushed freeze dried strawberries if desired. After about 20 minutes the glaze will harden.
Notes
Nutrition
The nutritional information on this website is only an estimate and is provided for convenience and as a courtesy only. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
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