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Easy Marbled Heart Sugar Cookies

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Looking for an easy AND impressive cookie for Valentine’s Day? Most iced cookies require a piping bag and several hours of decorating time, but these Easy Marbled Heart Sugar Cookies are simply DIPPED right into the icing! It’s so fast and easy to do. Plus, the icing is made without meringue powder. It sets with a crisp and stackable finish.

Use these cookies for valentines, gifts, or just fun festive cookie to bake in February!

Iced marbled heart sugar cookies arranged in rows on parchment paper.

If you are digging this recipe, you should also try another favorite: my Chocolate Chip Skillet Cookie recipe!

I love a low-fuss cookie recipe. Most of the recipes you will find on this site are quite easy and doable. With a full schedule and two busy kiddos I don’t always have time for fussy bakes.

This particular recipe is handy because the sugar cookies are made with melted butter and no electric mixer. That’s right, you can skip the creaming process altogether. These cookies come together so quickly! I do want you to chill the dough before rolling and baking, but you can pop it in the fridge and forget it while you get other things done.

You’ll also love how easy these are to decorate. You just dip them right into a bowl of icing (so easy to make too!) and you’re done! No fussing with piping bags or spending hours decorating.

Shout out to Sugar Spun Run, where I originally learned about adding a little corn syrup to icing (instead of meringue powder). I honestly prefer this to royal icing! Although royal icing is still best for complicated flooded designs that are so trendy right now.

Does using melted butter negatively affect the cookies?

Since we are skipping the creaming process and using melted butter, does this negatively affect the cookies in any way?

The main differences I’ve noticed are as follows:

  • The cookies are a bit more crisp (versus chewy or soft).
  • The cookies spread a tiny bit more and the surface is not perfectly smooth.
  • When I re-roll the scraps I find the second round of cookies is not as tidy as the first.

If those disclaimers make you nervous, feel free to use another favorite sugar recipe and just utilize my frosting suggestions. However, I really love this recipe and totally stand behind it as an alternative to sugar cookie recipes that require room temperature butter and an electric mixer.

What You’ll Love About These Marbled Sugar Cookies

  • The cookie dough is prepared in one bowl only!
  • No electric mixer required!
  • The cookies are dipped, so you don’t need piping bags or hours of decorating time. You’ll be done so quickly!
A marbled heart sugar cookie with pink icing.
Headshot photo of woman smiling and wearing a white dress and gold necklace.

Recipes by a Real Person in a Real Kitchen

My recipes have been imagined, hypothesized, taste-tested, and refined by a real human (me!). I only publish recipes I think taste awesome.

I worked for a long time to develop a sugar cookie recipe that could be made with melted butter. I think the finished product was worth the many sticks of butter used for testing!

I also wanted a simple decoration that could be done when you are in a hurry.

These cookies are dipped, not piped, and look lovely. You can let them harden overnight and pack them up in the morning ready for school the next day.

Ingredients in Heart Shaped Marbled Cookies

A few notes on some of the ingredients used in the cookies:

Unsalted Butter – I always use unsalted American butter in my recipes. I shop at Costco the most frequently so I often go with their store-brand of butter for baking. Unsalted butter is important–using it means that you are in control of the final taste of the cookie! Using salted butter will yield overly salty cookies.

Granulated Sugar – regular granulated sugar is used in the cookies.

Egg – You can use a room temp egg or a egg straight from the fridge.

Vanilla extract – Use your favorite! Used in the cookies and the icing.

All-Purpose Flour – I use all-purpose flour in my baking. It’s very very important to measure your flour correctly. Never pack flour into a measuring cup. Use a scale for best results. This is probably my best baking tip! I LOVE my scale!

Baking powder – grab baking powder for this one. Baking powder and baking soda are NOT interchangeable.

Salt – this is just regular ol’ table salt.

Powdered sugar – sift first for best results! If you are in a hurry and skip it like me, you might notice extra bubbles in your icing!

Light corn syrup – don’t skip it! This helps the icing to set properly and yield stackable cookies when totally dry. If you are just making cookies for fun and don’t care about stacking or presentation you can leave it out (this is usually me when my kiddos are wanting to bake–we are just focused on the experience, not perfection!!)

Milk – to thin the icing–any kind (even cream!) will do.

Pink gel food coloring – if you only have liquid food coloring, just be aware that it might thin down the icing so you may need to reduce the milk a bit or add more powdered sugar to achieve the right consistency.

Sprinkles – totally optional, but cute sprinkles would be really fun here too!

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How to Make Marbled Heart Sugar Cookies

This is just a super super quick summary of how to make these cookies. Find the complete ingredients list and full instructions within the printable recipe card below!

The recipe will start with melted and cooled butter. We’ll mix in sugar. Then, eggs and vanilla.

A bowl with melted butter, then sugar and eggs added, and then mixed together.

And then add the dry ingredients:

A bowl with dry ingredients added to butter/sugar mixture and then stirred.

The dough will need to be chilled before rolling–at least two hours. This is a great make-ahead recipe too. You can roll them out the next day if you want!

Cut hearts from the rolled-out dough and bake.

Heart sugar cookies on a baking tray before and after baking.

Once the cookies are cool, you can prepare the icing.

Mix up the ingredients and aim for a consistency where the icing drizzles from a smooth ribbon from the whisk and hold its shape on top of the bowl of icing before the drizzles start to soak back into the icing.

Because we aren’t going to pipe the icing, we have a bit more flexibility with the consistency. But it will drizzle off the cookies a bit more if it’s thinner.

Checking consistency of powdered sugar icing in a gray bowl with a fork.

I make all the frosting light pink and then a small amount a darker pink. Drizzle some of the darker color into the bowl.

Light and dark pink icing.

And dip and flip! This is the fun part. Let the icing drizzle off the cookie for a few moments before flipping it over.

Dipping a heart sugar cookie into a bowl of pink frosting and bringing it out to reveal a marbled design.
Two iced marbled heart sugar cookies stacked onto each other.

How to Store or Make Ahead

To store leftover icing: just lightly cover the surface with plastic wrap (the wrap should touch the icing) and then store in an airtight container for 3-5 days.

To store iced cookies: Cookies with dry icing cookies can be kept at room temperature (store in a sealed air tight container) or in the fridge. Store for 3-5 days.

How to Freeze

I haven’t frozen cookies with this icing recipe yet, but I’ll update when I do. I think it should work fine!

Tips On Avoiding Bubbles

I struggled with lots of bubbles in this batch of icing. I perused around the internet and learned that I should’ve sifted my powdered sugar (I didn’t have lumps, but I did get bubbles so I won’t skip this step next time!). They are easily popped with a toothpick or a scribe tool and honestly in person the bubbles are not very noticeable at all.

How to Dip the Cookies

I love this method of decorating cookies. Even if a cookie has too much icing, it’ll just drizzle off while it starts to dry. I like to move these cookies to a clean spot on my baking trays to avoid the puddles forming around them. OR, just set them on a cooling rack to drizzle off and dry.

More Cookie Recipes to Try:

If you are looking for great recipes for Valentine’s Day, might I also suggest Peanut Butter Heart Cookies and Strawberry Cookies with Strawberry Buttercream?

You’ll love the following recipes as well!

Don’t forget to pin this recipe for later!

Heart cookies decorated with pink marbled icing with the words, "Valentine's Day Heart Cookies!"

If you loved this recipe, leave a quick comment and a 5-star rating!
Thanks so much for trying one of my recipes!

Iced marbled heart sugar cookies arranged in rows on parchment paper.

Marbled Heart Sugar Cookies

Skip the fuss of piping and hours of decorating! These Easy Marbled Heart Sugar Cookies are dipped in icing for a quick, gorgeous finish—perfect for Valentine's Day. The dippable icing dries hard so these cookies can be carefully stacked or packaged for gifts. The recipe makes 24, 2.5” heart cookies. Be sure to check out the process photos in the blog post to learn how to do the icing!
5 from 1 vote
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes
Rest Time 6 hours
Total Time 6 hours 30 minutes
Course Dessert
Cuisine American
Servings 24 2.5″ cookies
Calories 150 kcal

Ingredients
 

  • 10 tablespoons unsalted butter melted and cooled for 10 minutes
  • ¾ cup sugar 5.25 ounces granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • 1 ⅔ cups flour 8.35 ounces all-purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon salt

Sugar Cookie Icing:

  • 2 ¼ cup powdered sugar 9 ounces, sifted
  • 1 ½ tablespoon light corn syrup
  • 3-5 tablespoons milk
  • ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
  • pink gel food coloring
  • sprinkles (optional)

Instructions
 

Make the Cookies:

  • Add sugar to melted and cooled butter and stir until the mixture is totally combined. It should be thick and shiny. Stir in egg and vanilla until combined and smooth, about 60 seconds.
  • Add the flour, baking powder, and salt into the bowl with the other ingredients and use a spatula or spoon to stir together until combined. Dough will be very soft.
  • Chill dough for 2 hours or up to overnight.
  • Preheat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
    After chilling, sprinkle a clean countertop with powdered sugar. Sprinkle the dough as well and roll out using a rolling pin. Roll to ¼” thickness. Cut hearts with a cookie cutter and re-roll scraps 1x.
    Note: Don’t toss the scraps! I always bake my leftover scraps as a messy cookie for my kiddos who always want a bite.
  • Arrange hearts 1.5” apart on parchment lined baking sheets and bake one sheet at a time for 9-10 minutes. Check at 7-8 minutes to be sure you don’t overbake. You want just the tiniest bit of golden brown on the edges.
    Cool cookies completely before decorating.

Make the Icing:

  • Combine 3 tablespoons of the milk along with the other icing ingredients (except food coloring and sprinkles) into a medium bowl. Whisk until smooth, adding more of the milk as needed.
    Frosting should drizzle from a smooth ribbon from the whisk and hold its shape on top of the bowl of icing before the drizzles start to soak back into the icing.
    If it’s too thick, add a little more milk (1 teaspoon at a time), if it’s too thin, add a little more powdered sugar (a few tablespoons at a time).
  • Color the icing light pink with the tiniest amount of pink gel food coloring (OR leave white). Adjust amount to suit your taste.
  • Separate out about 25% of the icing into a small bowl and color a much brighter pink. Now, drizzle a little (not all) across the larger icing bowl.
  • Hold a cookie upside down by the edges and dip into the icing. You are just dipping the front of the cookie.
    Lift and allow the excess icing to drip for 3-4 seconds. Quick flip cookie, gently wiggle it to spread icing, and set on a wire rack or lined cookie sheet to set. Pop any bubbles or swipe away drips quickly with a toothpick.
    Optional: add sprinkles immediately. If you wait, the icing will already be too hard.
    Drizzle more of the bright pink into the bowl as the marbling gets used up by the dipped cookies.
  • Allow cookies to harden at room temperature for several hours before carefully stacking and storing. Check icing to for hardness before stacking. I like to place a piece of wax paper between each layer. I’ve stacked multiple layers of cookies with no problems.

Notes

How to Store

To store leftover icing: just lightly cover the surface with plastic wrap (the wrap should touch the icing) and then store in an airtight container for 3-5 days.
To store iced cookies: Cookies with dry icing cookies can be kept at room temperature (store in a sealed air tight container) or in the fridge. Store for 3-5 days. I haven’t frozen cookies with this icing recipe yet, but I’ll update when I do. I think it should work fine!

Nutrition

Calories: 150kcalCarbohydrates: 25gProtein: 1gFat: 5gSaturated Fat: 3gPolyunsaturated Fat: 0.3gMonounsaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0.2gCholesterol: 20mgSodium: 38mgPotassium: 17mgFiber: 0.2gSugar: 18gVitamin A: 159IUCalcium: 11mgIron: 0.5mg
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