Valentine Heart Cookies Recipe

Grandma's Valentine heart cookies recipe makes delicious homemade cookies to brighten your Valentine's Day party. You'll enjoy serving them to your family and friends since everyone loves the delicious chocolate and natural lemon flavors.

For Valentine's Day, simply cut the rolled out dough using your favorite heart-shaped cookie cutters and decorate with your choice of white, red, or pink frosting. These cookies are also perfect for serving at anniversaries, birthdays, and for edible gifts.

Valentine Heart Cookies Recipe

Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes (1915)

Valentine Heart Cookies Recipe

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup shortening
3 eggs (not separated)
2 cups granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons lemon rind (grated rind of 2 lemons)
3 tablespoons lemon juice (juice of one lemon)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 tablespoon whole milk
3 1/2 cups flour

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Beat butter and shortening together until creamy.
2. Beat in eggs (not separated) one at a time.
3. Beat in sugar and salt.
4. Beat in lemon rind and juice and baking powder dissolved in milk.
5. Stiffen the dough with about 3 1/2 cups flour and use about 1 extra cup of flour to dredge the bake-board when rolling out dough and for sifting over the greased baking sheets so the cookies will come off readily.
6. Roll dough very thin and cut in small hearts, rounds, or any desired shape for Valentine's Day.
7. Bake (375°F) about 10 to 12 minutes, or until they appear done.

NOTES:

• Aunt Sarah often cut these cookies with a small round cookie cutter and when all were on the baking sheet she either placed a half of an English walnut meat in the center of each cookie or cut out the center of each small cookie with the top of a pepper box lid before baking them.
• From this Valentine heart cookies recipe may be made approximately 100 small cookies depending on the size of your cutter.
• The baking sheet (17x16 inches) holds 20 of these small cookies.

Want More Valentine Treats?

Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes (1915)

Dutch Chocolate Heart Cookies

For this old fashioned Valentine heart cookies recipe, beat to a cream half a cupful of butter and one tablespoonful of lard.

Gradually beat into this one cupful of sugar; then add one-fourth of a teaspoonful of salt, one teaspoonful of cinnamon, and two ounces of Walter Baker & Co.'s Premium No. 1 Chocolate, melted.

Now add one well-beaten egg, and half a teaspoonful of soda dissolved in two tablespoonfuls of milk. Stir in about two cupfuls and a half of flour.

Roll thin, and, cutting in either round or heart shapes, bake in a rather quick oven (425°F). The secret of making good cookies is the use of as little flour as will suffice.

Puff Pastry Treats for Valentine's Day

The Book of Household Management (1861)

Puits d'Amour

Ingredients: Puff-paste (1/2 pound of paste is sufficient for 2 dishes of pastry), the white of an egg, sifted loaf sugar.

Method:

Make some good puff-paste by recipe; roll it out to the thickness of about 1/4 inch, and, with a round fluted paste-cutter, stamp out as many pieces as may be required; then work the paste up again, and roll it out to the same thickness, and with a smaller cutter, stamp out sufficient pieces to correspond with the larger ones.

Again stamp out the center of these smaller rings; brush over the others with the white of an egg, place a small ring on the top of every large circular piece of paste, egg over the tops, and bake (350°F) from 15 to 20 minutes.

Sift over sugar, put them back in the oven to color them; then fill the rings with preserve of any bright color. Dish them high on a napkin, and serve.

So many pretty dishes of pastry may be made by stamping puff-paste out with fancy cutters, and filling the pieces, when baked, with jelly or preserve, that our space will not allow us to give a separate recipe for each of them; but, as they are all made from one paste, and only the shape and garnishing varied, perhaps it's unnecessary, and by exercising a little ingenuity, variety may always be obtained.

Hearts, half-moons, leaves, diamonds, stars, shamrocks, rings, and so on are the most appropriate shapes for fancy pastry, seasonable at any time.

Almond Flowers

Ingredients: Puff-paste; to every 1/2 pound of paste allow 3 ounces of almonds, sifted sugar, the white of an egg.

Method:

For this old fashioned Valentine recipe, roll the paste out to the thickness of 1/4 inch, and, with a round fluted cutter, stamp out as many pieces as may be required.

Work the remaining paste up again, roll it out, and, with a smaller cutter, stamp out some pieces the size of a shilling. Brush the larger pieces over with the white of an egg, and place one of the smaller pieces on each.

Blanch and cut the almonds into strips lengthways; press them slanting into the paste closely round the rings; and when they are all completed, sift over some pounded sugar, and bake (350°F) for about 1/4 hour or 20 minutes.

Garnish between the almonds with strips of apple jelly, and place in the center of the ring a small quantity of strawberry jam; pile them high on the dish, and serve.

Pastry Cookies With Whipped Cream

Ingredients: Puff-paste (1/2 pound of paste will make 2 dishes of pastry cookies), jam of any kind, the white of an egg, sifted sugar.

Method:

Roll the paste out thin; put half of it on a baking sheet or tin, and spread equally over it apricot, greengage, or any preserve that may be preferred.

Lay over this preserve another thin paste; press the edges together all round; and mark the paste in lines with a knife on the surface, to show where to cut it when baked.

Bake (350°F) from 20 minutes to 1/2 hour; and, a short time before being done, take the pastry out of the oven, brush it over with the white of an egg, sift over pounded sugar, and put it back in the oven to color.

When cold, cut it into strips; pile these on a dish in a pyramidal manner, and serve.

These strips, cut about 2 inches long, piled in circular rows, and a plateful of flavored whipped cream poured in the middle, make a very pretty party dish for Valentine's Day or any special occasion.

Vintage Valentine Card

The vintage valentine card is one that Mom received at a class Valentine's Day party in 1920. Being given a store-bought card was really something back then, as money was scarce and most kids had to be content with making their own.

Moms baked their own cookies back then too, likely using an old fashioned Valentine heart cookies recipe such as those above. You can use them to make special cookies for any holiday celebration. Simply cut your homemade cookies in festive shapes other than hearts.