Red and White Striped Heart Cookies
Soft lemon sugar cookies, with a beautiful red and white striped dough that's cut in heart shapes for Valentine's Day.
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Equipment
- Food Processor or Pastry Cutter
- Rolling Pin and Cookie Cutters
Ingredients
White Cookie Dough
- 1 ½ cups all purpose flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- ½ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp lemon extract
- 2 tbsp whole milk
Red Cookie Dough
- 1 ½ cups all purpose flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- ½ cup powdered sugar
- 1 ½ tsp unsweetened Dutch processed cocoa powder
- ¼ tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- ½ cup cold unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ tsp lemon extract
- ½ tsp "super red" gel food coloring
- 2 tbsp whole milk
Lemon Icing (Optional)
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 tsp meringue powder
- 2 ½ - 3 tbsp lemon juice
Instructions
Make the White Cookie Dough
- In your food processor, pulse the flour, powdered sugar and salt until combined.
- With the processor running, drop in the pieces of butter one at a time, until the butter is completely incorporated with no visible chunks.
- Add the vanilla extract, lemon extract and milk, and run the processor until the mixture comes together into a soft dough.
- Dump the dough out onto a clean counter and use your hands to finish bringing the dough together, kneading in any stray bits of flour. The dough should be soft, smooth and supple.
- Shape the dough into a flat disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
Make the Red Cookie Dough
- Repeat the above steps to make the red cookie dough, this time adding the cocoa powder along with the dry ingredients, and the red food coloring when you add the extracts and milk.Baker's Note: The small amount of cocoa powder gives the red a richer, deeper color. Without the cocoa powder, the red color will be brighter.
- Shape the dough into a flat disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for 20 minutes.
Roll out the Dough and Cut the Cookies
- On a lightly floured surface, roll out the white cookie dough into a circle, with an even thickness of a little more than 1/4 inch thick. Then do the same with the red dough, trying to keep it about the same size and shape as the white.
- Using a ruler or straightedge and a rolling pastry wheel cutter, cut the white dough into strips measuring 1/4 inch wide. Then do the same with the red dough.
- Arrange the strips of white and red dough in an alternating pattern. As you lay each strip of dough down, be sure to use a dry pastry brush to brush the dough free of excess flour, as too much flour will prevent the strips from sticking together, and will make the cookies prone to breaking along the seams.
- Once you have all the strips of dough arranged tightly together, lay a piece of wax paper over the dough. Use your rolling pin to gently roll out the dough in the direction of the stripes, to an even thickness a little less than 1/4 inch thick. This will help to seal the strips of dough against each other.
- Now use your cookie cutters to cut as many striped cookies as you can. Gather up the scraps of dough, roll them out again, and continue to cut cookies until you've used up all the dough. The cookies cut from the scraps will have a marbled pattern instead of stripes.
- Place the cut cookies two inches apart on two baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Refrigerate for 30 minutes before baking.
Bake the Cookies
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven.
- Bake one pan of cookies at a time, keeping the rest refrigerated until ready to bake.
- Bake for 12 minutes. Let the cookies cool for five minutes on the baking sheet before gently transferring them to cooling racks to cool completely. These cookies are extremely delicate when warm, so handle them gently until they’ve cooled.
Lemon Icing
- Although these cookies are too pretty to cover up with icing, the lemon icing adds so much more lemon flavor, as well as a sweet tart finish. Without icing, the cookies are not super sweet on their own.
- In a bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar and meringue powder, then whisk in the lemon juice until smooth.
- Dip the tops of the cookies in the icing and lightly shake off the excess, or just use a spoon to drizzle the icing over the cookies.
- Before the icing crusts over, you can add sparkling sugar or sprinkles.
Notes
- Making the Dough without a Food Processor: If you don't have a food processor, you'll need a large bowl and a pastry cutter. In the bowl, combine the flour, sugar and salt. Scatter with the cold butter pieces and use the pastry cutter to cut the butter in until very finely cut and evenly distributed. Drizzle with the vanilla and milk, then use your hands to work the liquid into the dry ingredients until it forms into a soft dough.
- Yield: Using a 2 1/2 inch cookie cutter, you should be able to cut about 3 dozen cookies.
- Storing the Baked Cookies: The baked cookies should be cooled completely then stored in an airtight container for up to 5 days. If you won't be frosting and decorating them immediately, freeze the cookies in an airtight container for 3-6 months.
- Freezing the Dough: To make the dough in advance, wrap the disks of dough in plastic wrap, label them, and refrigerate for up to 5 days, or freeze for 3-6 months. Frozen dough should be thawed overnight in the refrigerator. Then take the dough out of the fridge about 1 hour before you're ready to roll out the dough. It should still be cool to the touch when you roll it out, but pliable enough to roll without too much difficulty.
- Be sure to follow all steps of brushing the dough free of flour and sealing all the edges together, or the cookies will be prone to breaking along the seams where the vanilla and chocolate dough join.
- Another option for decorating is to lightly brush the tops of the unbaked cookies with beaten egg white, and sprinkling them with sparkling sugar before baking. This will give them a sweet, crunchy finish on top. See this recipe for almond sugar cookies for an example.
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