Martha Stewart Pink Heart Sandwich Cookies

Martha Stewart pink heart sandwich cookies, easy to batch for Valentine's Day, start with butter cookie dough tinted in shades of pink food coloring. The hearts come in three sizes and get sandwiched with cream filling that has a grainy, Oreo-like crunch.

The recipe makes 51 cookies for a classroom party, cookie exchange, or Valentine's gift box. Roll the dough just under 1/4 inch thick, because thinner cookies spread and lose their heart shape in the oven.

Martha Stewart Pink Heart Sandwich Cookies

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Course: DessertCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Medium

Servings

51

servings

Prep time

1

hour 

15

minutes

Cooking time

55

minutes

Calories

80

kcal

Crisp, buttery hearts in a gradient of pinks, each one filled with a cream center that snaps with granulated sugar.

Ingredients

• 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour, plus more for parchment
  

• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  

• 1/4 teaspoon coarse salt
  

• 1 stick unsalted butter, softened
  

• 1 cup sugar
  

• 1 large egg
  

• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
  

• Red and pink gel-paste food coloring
  

• Cream Filling
  

Directions

• Make the dough: Whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Beat together butter and sugar with a mixer on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in egg and vanilla. Reduce speed to low, and gradually add flour mixture, beating until just incorporated. Remove from the mixer and knead until a dough forms.
• Color the dough: Divide dough into 3 or 4 pieces, depending on how many shades of pink you would like the cookies to be. Working with 1 piece of dough at a time, add food coloring, 1 drop at a time, mixing and kneading to combine, until desired shade is reached; the more food coloring you add, the darker the color will be. Flatten each piece of colored dough into a disk, and wrap each in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until firm, at least 1 hour and up to overnight.
• Roll and cut: Bring dough to room temperature, about 10 minutes, before rolling. Preheat oven to 325 degrees with racks in top and lower thirds. Roll out each disk of dough between 2 sheets of lightly floured parchment to just under 1/4 inch thick, adding more flour as needed to keep dough from sticking.
• Cut the hearts: Cut out 1-, 1 1/2-, and 2-inch heart shapes, making sure you have even numbers in each color and size for a total of thirty-six 1-inch, thirty-six 1 1/2-inch, and thirty 2-inch cookies, rerolling scraps once. Place cookies 1 inch apart on parchment-lined baking sheets, and freeze until very firm, about 15 minutes.
• Bake and assemble: Bake until barely golden brown around edges, about 8 minutes for 1-inch cookies, 10 minutes for 1 1/2-inch cookies, and 12 minutes for 2-inch cookies, rotating halfway through. Let cookies cool completely on baking sheets set on wire racks. Spread or pipe filling onto bottom side of half the cookies, and sandwich with remaining cookies, pressing gently. Cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature up to 1 week.

Tools for this recipe

• KitchenAid Artisan 5-quart stand mixer, Nordic Ware half sheet pan, J.K. Adams French rolling pin, Nielsen-Massey Madagascar Bourbon vanilla extract, 8 oz. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

FAQs

Can I make pink heart sandwich cookies ahead of time?

The assembled cookies keep at room temperature in an airtight container for up to 1 week. You can also refrigerate the colored dough disks overnight before rolling, which actually makes them easier to cut since the dough firms up completely.

What is the cream filling in sandwich cookies?

The filling is a simple buttercream made with butter, shortening, powdered sugar, and vanilla, but what makes it different is the granulated sugar mixed in. That granulated sugar does not dissolve, so you get a slight crunch in every bite instead of a smooth, soft center.

What size heart cookie cutters do I need?

You need three sizes: 1 inch, 1 1/2 inch, and 2 inch. The recipe yields 18 small sandwiches, 18 medium, and 15 large, for a total of 51 cookies. Metal cutters give cleaner edges than plastic on chilled dough.

Can I use liquid food coloring instead of gel-paste?

Gel-paste food coloring works much better here because you get a deep pink with just 1 or 2 drops. Liquid food coloring adds too much moisture, and you would need 15 to 20 drops for a saturated shade, which makes the dough sticky and hard to roll.

Why do the cookies need to freeze before baking?

Freezing for 15 minutes firms the butter back up so the hearts hold their shape in a 325 degree oven. If you skip this step, the cookies spread during baking and you end up with rounded blobs instead of clean heart shapes.