Gorgeous Valentines Day Cookies Anyone Can Decorate!

Valentines Day is a holiday that makes for an awesome excuse to create cookies. Along with Christmas, it is one of my favorite holidays for cookie decorating. There are so many fun options to explore piping techniques for intricate and gorgeous valentines day cookies. Painting with a cookie canvas is the best, and it’s something that anyone can do. Don’t be intimidated by royal icing. It is such an awesome medium to work with, and it can be easily mastered.

(Disclosure: This  post may contain affiliate links.  all opinions are my own and unbiased. Confectionalism believes in being completely transparent for my valued readers. I may receive a commission if you click a link and purchase something. Please check out our disclosure info for more details.)

I wanted to create a design I felt anyone could accomplish with great results. I decided to play with different techniques to see what would be the most forgiving when it comes to piping mistakes. Shaky hands can be a real problem when decorating pastries and cookies, so I decided I would attempt to recreate this problem by drinking my fair share of coffee before attempting this project. The caffeine jitters proved to leave me with a pretty unsteady hand, but with the correct flood icing consistency, and forgiving rosette swirls, I was still able to produce good results.

I also experimented with improper piping techniques to see what would be the best way to get great results even if you aren’t experienced with royal icing. Lettering can be a challenge but the rosettes were very forgiving with both shaky hands and bad icing bag form.

I was able to experiment with a kitchen gadget I hadn’t been able to try out yet. I had my doubts, but was extremely impressed with the results! The  from Nordic Ware is a great option for you if you’re not very confident in your piping abilities. It keeps things very clean as well. Nordic Ware did a great job when they invented this cute little gizmo. They are inexpensive too, which is wonderful. 

I used my recipe for Lavender Lemon Sugar Cookies as my Valentines cookie canvas. They are an elegant cookie for romantic occasions such as V-day! The dough is very easy to work with for cutting with your favorite cookie cutters. My favorite cutter I used here is from . It’s huge and intricate, all of which makes an for an impressive Valentines gift to your loved ones. I purchased it last year, and this is the first chance I’ve had to use it. I have been collecting their giant cookie cutters they offer for each Holiday. I am enamored with this Valentines edition, and their giant snowflake cutters they offer around Christmas are even more impressive. I think I’ll be buying them out and gifting them next year.

This made a great cookie pop as well. Throw this baby on a stick, and you’ve got a gorgeous cookie pop the size of your head. Who wouldn’t love getting a giant, beautiful and tasty cookie pop from their secret admirer? It would win me over, that’s for sure.

Williams Sonoma seems to come out with a different one every year so the one I attained features scalloped edges that the one available now doesn’t have anymore. If I can track down where to purchase the one I have, I’ll post it- but for now this giant cookie cutter would still produce and awesome cookie.

I also wanted to try out a royal icing product to see what kind of results I could get without making my own from scratch. I tried out a mix I purchased from a local craft store –  It produced satisfactory Royal Icing. It was more convenient than producing royal icing from scratch because you just add water. I didn’t get the glossy results i’m used to with making my own royal icing, but if you just want to get to decorating and have good results, it’s a decent option. It took to coloring very well, and was easy to thin for flooding.

Want to start decorating those cookies for your honey? Lets get started then!

After baking your cookies, allow them to cool completely before beginning the decorating fun. If you don’t, you’re icing will melt and won’t leave the best results, unless you like a Salvador Dahli melted look, be patient and only start once your cookie canvases have cooled.

1. Clear some counter space and have a few clean cookie sheets or cooling racks available to place your decorated cookies to dry. Putting them on wire racks or baking sheets helps you to move them while they are drying, without messing up your awesome decorating job!

2. Get a few times handy and place them at your clear cookie decorating workspace. You will need: Squeeze bottle for flooding, toothpicks, icing bags for each color of decorating icing, small round piping tips, small spatula, small containers with lids for coloring royal icing,  or royal icing recipe, small funnel, small brush, water, and plastic wrap.

3. Prepare your royal icing by the mix instructions or recipe instructions. The goal is to have a spreadable icing that holds it’s peak. Be careful not to over thin. Reserve half of stiff icing for decorating, and half for thinning as flood icing. Put stiff icing in containers and cover to surface with plastic wrap to keep from drying.

4. To prepare the flood icing add water, 1 teaspoon at a time until the flood consistency is achieved. To be at the proper flooding consistency, take a spoonful of icing and drop it back into the bowl. It should take between 12-14 seconds for the icing to smooth itself out. It resembles the consistency of shampoo when it’s properly thinned. If you have found that it is too thin, add a little but of the reserved stiff icing to thicken it.

5. Using your choice of gel food coloring, color your flood icing until the desired color is reached- less for pastel colors, more for vibrant colors. Using your funnel add the flood icing to your squeeze bottle.

6. Tint and color your stiff decorating icing, each color you would like to implement in your cookie design. After coloring add each color to it’s own piping bag fitted with the small decorator tip. You can visit my icing bag tutorial for tips on how to fill your icing bags.

7. Now we start icing those delicious cookies. Begin with the border icing and trace the outline of each cookie with the flood icing. Hold the bottle vertical with the tip of the bottle slightly above your cookie. Squeeze gently and with consistent pressure tracing the shapes of the outside and inside shapes Think of this border flood icing like drawing lines with a pen. The initial tracing you are doing around the edges of the cookie will set a flood border that will hold the rest of the flood icing on the cookies surface. The flood icing has to be at the proper consistency for this, or it will run over the sides of your cookie. If it does begin to run over the sides, wither it is too thin, or you are squeezing with too much pressure.

8. After tracing the cookie begin filling in the empty spaces within your borders with the flood icing- being careful not to over flood. a few gaps and spaces are ok. After quickly scribbling the open spaces between the borders, use a toothpick to pull the flood icing into the small empty spaces. This helps to attain a smooth surface without over icing the cookie.

9. Allow the flooded cookies to dry for 40 min to an hour, until dry, before piping the decor.

10. In this design- I followed the scalloped edges of the cookie with stiff icing, and used a damp brush to pull the icing inwards, also known as brush embroidery. This is a simple technique to accomplish when using royal icing. Having a damp brush is key, and work a small section at a time. If you try piping the edges all at once, by the time you get to the icing with a brush it may be dryer partially.

11. The rosette swirls are a great option for those of you with unsteady hands, or those of you who aren’t super comfortable with your piping techniques. Using a consistent firm pressure on your decorator bag of stiff icing, pipe small swirls, starting from the center and going outward. Place them in varying places, repeating with different colors. This is a very forgiving design, and can be achieved with very little experience. Also, if you accidentally mess up, you can always pipe over your oops with another rosette swirl. There are many video tutorials online to help better understand brush embroidery- I also plan on posting one very soon.

12. Once decorated, let your cookies dry completely and place in a airtight container or package between parchment paper as gifts. The cookie pop can be wrapped in a candy bag and even tied with ribbon for an awesome gift. The cookies will last for several weeks when stored this way.

0