- Prep Time: 30m
- Cook Time: 14m
- Yield: about 36
Ingredients
For Cookies
- 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
- 4 sticks butter (2 cups), room temperature
- 2 cups white Sugar
- 2 egg yolks
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 5 1/4 cups flour
For Royal Icing
- 5 tablespoons meringue powder
- 6 ounces warm water
- 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 2 pounds powdered sugar
- Purple Food Coloring
Also Need:
- Heart Cookie Cutter
- Piping Bag
- Piping Tip #3
- Toothpicks
- Sprinkles
Instructions
For Cookies:
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together cream cheese and butter.
- Mix in sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add egg yolks one at a time, mixing after each one and then add the vanilla. Mix well.
- In a large bowl mix dry ingredients, add a little at a time to butter mixture.
- Mix until flour is completely incorporated and dough comes together. If it seems to not be coming together all the way in the bowl, dump it out onto a flat surface and knead until the dough comes together.
- Roll dough out to about 1/4 inch thickness (thicker or thinner depending on your preference)
- Cut out 36 hearts.
- Bake on ungreased baking sheet at 350 degrees for 14 minutes.
- Lay cookies on a wire rack to cool.
For Royal Icing:
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine warm water and meringue powder. Mix for 30 seconds.
- Add in cream of tartar and mix for 30 seconds.
- Pour in powdered sugar.
- Using the paddle attachment on the lowest speed, mix slowly for a full 10 minutes.
- Icing will get thick and creamy.
Decorate!
- Make sure you have cookies baked, icing made, icing colored, sprinkles ready and piping bags fitted and filled.
- For the icing, you don't want the icing to be too thick but you don\'t want it to be water either. What I do is, I spoon about 2-3 cups of icing into a bowl, tint it the color I want and then add a teaspoon of water at a time, stirring until the icing is the consistency of thick glue.
- I used a #3 tip for these but you would use a smaller tip if you wanted.
- Step 2: Pipe an outline!
- Use your icing and slowly pipe an outline, following the shape of the heart all the way around the cookie. Piping outlines may take a little practice but I find that if I lift my piping bag up and bit and let a line of icing drape down it is easier that having my piping tip right on the cookie.
- Sprinkles
- Step 3: Fill in the cookie:
- Use your icing to filling in the center of the cookie. You can use toothpicks to help spread icing and pop any air bubbles in icing.
- Step 3: Sprinkles!
- It\'s time to add the sprinkles! You want to do this while the icing is still wet so the sprinkles will stick
- I just added sprinkles to the top of this cookie but you could add them to the whole cookie or to a side of the cookie as I did to some of the white heart cookies in the photos up top and below.
- Step 4: Let them dry!
- After you\'ve decorated these cookies, let them dry uncovered 6-8 hours or overnight.
- That way you can stack them or package them up without messing them up.
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