Valentine’s Slice and Bake Cookies

Name: Valentine's Slice and Bake Cookies
Prep time: 110 min
Cook time: 10 min
Total time: 120 min
Ingredients: 3 cups unbleached, all-purpose flour; 2 teaspoons baking powder; 1 cup sugar; 1 cup butter (cold & cut into chunks); 1 large egg; 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract; 1 1/2 teaspoons liquid red food coloring

5 from 4 votes

108 comments

January 12, 2014

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These Slice and Bake Cookies are the cutest little treats for Valentine’s Day! Perfectly sweet with a red heart in the middle of each cookie! If you want to try an amazing traditional sugar cookie, I posted a great Sugar Cookies with Icing recipe a few years ago. It’s an amazing fail-proof cookie that is literally one of my favorite go-to recipes.

valentine's slice and bake cookies stacked on top of each other on a white cake plate with milk

These Valentine’s Slice and Bake Cookies are a fun variation to traditional sugar cookies! I’m sure you’ve seen the pre-made slice and bake dough with holiday images at the store. My daughter sees them EVERY TIME we go to the store and asks to buy them and I refuse because I make homemade cookies #thankyouverymuch. {Also, homemade cookie dough tastes approximately 14,000 times better than store-bought.}.

I know these seem a little bit on the harder side to make, but I promise they’re simpler than they look. Follow my simple steps below for how to make these slice and bake cookies.

Main Ingredients Needed

Many, if not all of the ingredients needed for these Valentine’s Slice and Bake Cookies will be in your pantry already! Here’s the list:

Sugar – to sweeten, this IS a sugar cookie recipe after all.
Baking Powder – this is used for leavening.
Butter – cold & cut into chunks.
Egg- this is used for texture and structure.
Flour – unbleached, this is used to fill out the rest of the cookie and help bring all the ingredients together.
Pure Vanilla Extract- look for pure vanilla extract here, not the imitation kind.
Food Coloring – I used tasteless liquid red food coloring…it worked like a charm!

Variations

The fun thing about this recipe is that you can make it for nearly any holiday! Here are a couple of fun Slice and Bake Cookie variations:

St. Patricks Day – dye some dough green and find a shamrock cookie cutter for a cute Irish cookie!
Easter – add less food dye for a pastel look and find a bunny or egg shaped cookie cutter.
Christmas – skip the middle part and instead roll the edges of the dough in red, green and white sprinkles for a simple Christmas cookie.
Fourth of July – taking some notes from the Christmas sections, use red, white and blue sprinkles!
Halloween – dye the outside dough purple, black or orange and keep the inside dough plain for some spooky contrast!

surrounding red heart dough with white dough

cookie dough logs wrapped in plastic wrap

How to Make Slice and Bake Cookies | Directions

For full details on how to make these Valentine’s Slice and Bake Cookies, scroll down to see the recipe card below. 🙂

Step 1: Make Dough

In a small bowl stir flour and baking powder together. Set aside. Cream butter and sugar together. Stir in egg and vanilla. Slowly incorporate dry ingredients. Once it has come together, remove 2/3 of it to a separate bowl. Stir in the red food coloring to the remaining 1/3 until uniform in color.

Step 2: Dye Red

Now, take 1/3 of that dough and dye it red. Roll it out pretty thick, about 1 inch thick, and start cutting out some hearts. Once you have them all cut, line them all up and do your best to stick them together without ruining their shape. I ended up with 3 stacks of hearts.

unbaked slice and bake cookies on a cookie sheet

Step 3: Roll Remaining Dough Out

Now divide your remaining uncolored cookie dough into 3 and cover each tower of stacked hearts, being careful to keep them together. I thought rolling out snakes of dough and sticking them down the sides was the easiest and fastest way to get them covered, but do it however you like. Once the heart is covered completely, gently roll it out to create a smooth, round edge. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate 1 hour to overnight.

Step 4: Preheat Oven and Slice

When ready to bake, preheat the oven. Line baking sheet with parchment paper or silicone baking mat and set aside. Remove cookie logs from fridge and slice into 1/2 inch rounds. Place onto the prepared baking sheet leaving 1 inch around each cookie.

Bake until cookie is barely {and I mean barely} brown on the bottoms, if brown at all. Remove from oven and cool a minute or two and then transfer to a wire rack. Or, just shovel them into your mouth. Either way is fine by me! 🙂

valentine's slice and bake cookies stacked on top of each other on a white cake plate

Storing Slice and Bake Cookies

Store slice and bake cookies in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Love Sugar Cookies? Give These Recipes a Try!

Be sure to make these soon for the ones you love! Here’s the printable below. Enjoy! 🙂

5 from 4 votes