Heart Shaped Strawberry Shortbread Cookies

Buttery strawberry shortbread cookies, flecked with vanilla bean and cardamom, and drizzled with strawberry icing for Valentine’s Day. This recipe uses freeze dried strawberries in the cookies and the icing to add a punch of strawberry flavor without adding excessive moisture. You can use any cookie cutter shape for your cookies, but the hearts look especially cute for Valentine’s Day.

Looking for more Valentine’s Day baking inspiration? Don’t miss these buttercream filled Valentine Linzer cookies, a Valentine’s Day cake with buttercream hearts, and no bake chocolate cherry cheesecake.

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Bursting with Strawberry Flavor. If you’ve never baked with freeze dried strawberries before, you’ll love the intense strawberry flavor they add to cookies, icing and other baked goods.

Pretty and Pink for Valentine’s Day. These cookies are unapologetically pretty and romantic. They’re perfect for gifting to your children’s teachers, coworkers, or someone special.

Easy to Make. I always make my shortbread cookie dough in my food processor, and it comes together effortlessly and quickly.

No Spread Recipe. When making cutout cookies, you want to be sure to use a recipe that won’t spread or lose its shape as the cookies bake. These no spread strawberry shortbread cookies will hold their shape perfectly.

See the recipe card at the end of the post for the full ingredients list and instructions.

Ingredients

Cookies

• Flour. All-purpose flour gives the cookies structure and strength.
• Powdered Sugar. Sweetens the cookies, while the fine texture makes a more tender shortbread cookie.
• Freeze Dried Strawberries. Adds strawberry flavor and specks of color, without adding excessive moisture.
• Salt. Balances the sweetness and enhances the flavors.
• Cardamom. The flavor of cardamom is a nice complement to the strawberries.
• Vanilla. Use either vanilla bean paste or good-quality vanilla extract for the best flavor.
• Butter. Adds flavor and tenderizes the cookies.
• Milk. Moistens the dough to bring it together.

Icing

• Powdered Sugar. Sweetens and thickens the icing.
• Freeze Dried Strawberries. Adds natural strawberry flavor and a pretty pink color.
• Vanilla Extract. Flavor.
• Milk. Thins the icing to a drizzly consistency. For best results, use whole milk, not skim or low fat milk.

Instructions

Make the cookie dough.

• In your food processor, pulse the flour, powdered sugar, crushed freeze dried strawberries, salt, cardamom and vanilla until combined.
• With the processor running, drop in the pieces of butter, one at at time, pulsing a few times until the butter is evenly distributed, and the dough is moistened and crumbly.
• Add the milk, then process until the dough starts to stick together.
• Dump the dough out onto a clean counter, along with the chopped freeze dried strawberries, and use your hands to finish bringing the dough together, kneading in any stray bits of flour.

Chill and cut the cookies.

• Shape the dough into a flat disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 20 minutes. Prepare two baking sheets by lining them with sheets of parchment paper.
• On a lightly floured surface, place the disk of dough, and dust the top of the dough with flour, too. Roll out to an even thickness of 1/4 inch thick. Use any size/shape cookie cutters to cut as many cookies as you can, placing the cut cookies 1-2 inches apart on the parchment lined baking sheets. Gather up the scraps of dough, roll them out again, and continue cutting as many cookies as you can.

TIP: I was able to cut 6 four-inch cookies and 10 three-inch cookies. Be sure to press the cutters down hard to cut through the chunks of dried strawberries.

Bake the cookies.

• Place the baking sheets with the cut cookies in the refrigerator and chill for 1 hour. Chilling the cut cookies helps to ensure they don’t spread and hold their shape perfectly while baking.
• Preheat the oven to 350F.Bake the chilled cookies on the center oven rack for about 10-12 minutes, depending on the size of the cookies. The tops should be a very pale golden with no dark browning, and you should see tiny flaky layers around the edges. If you (very carefully) turn a cookie over with a spatula, the bottom should have light golden browning, with no appearance of raw or wet dough.

TIP: If your cookies are larger, or your pan is more crowded with the cookies placed close together, it could take longer to bake the cookies. This is NOT a cookie that you want to under-bake, since a doughy, under-baked shortbread cookie does not have a pleasant texture. So be sure your cookies are fully baked.

• Cool the cookies for 5 minutes on the pan, then very gently transfer them to a cooling rack to cool completely. Shortbread cookies are delicate when warm, so handle with care. The cookies will initially be slightly crisp around the edges, but they soften a little as they’re stored with a firm but buttery texture.
• Let your cookies cool completely before frosting and decorating. You can bake the cookies in advance, store in an airtight container, and freeze for 3-6 months until you’re ready to ice them.

Drizzle with icing.

• In a bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, crushed freeze dried strawberries, vanilla and milk until smooth and drizzly. Use a spoon to drizzle the icing over the cookies. Place the cookies on a wire cooling rack set over a baking sheet to catch the icing drips.
• Before the icing sets, sprinkle the crumbled freeze dried strawberries on top. The icing will dry to the touch in about an hour, but will remain soft underneath if you press on it.

Recipe Variations

Frost with strawberry buttercream.

Instead of the strawberry icing, try piping or spreading on a thick layer of sweet strawberry buttercream (recipe found in this post).

Make sandwich cookies.

Sandwich two of the cookies together, filled with strawberry buttercream.

Make Linzer cookies.

These strawberry shortbread cookies would be beautiful made into Linzer cookies, with a center cutout that’s filled with strawberry jam.

Add nuts or candied orange peel.

Chopped macadamia nuts or sweet candied orange peel would both be fabulous with the flavor of the freeze dried strawberries.

Be sure to read all of my BAKING FAQs where I discuss ingredients, substitutions and common baking questions, so that you can be successful in your own baking!

Frequently Asked Questions

Where did you get the heart cookie cutters?

I used these Ann Clark heart cookie cutters.

Can I use fresh strawberries instead of freeze dried strawberries?

No. Fresh or frozen strawberries would add far too much moisture and ruin the cookies. You have to use freeze dried strawberries for this recipe.

Would freeze dried raspberries work instead of strawberries?

Yes, of course.

Can I use strawberry gelatin powder instead of freeze dried strawberries?

I’m not sure what strawberry flavored gelatin would do to the texture of the cookies, so I wouldn’t recommend it.

Can I make the cookie dough or cookies in advance and freeze them for later?

You can make the dough, wrap it well in plastic wrap, and freeze it for up to 3-6 months. The baked cookies (without icing) can also be frozen for up to 3-6 months, until you’re ready to ice them.

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