Strawberry Shortbread Cookies are crunchy, buttery cookies with fruity flavor and and pretty pink color. Heart thumbprint cookies are perfect Valentine's Day treats!
Why you'll love this recipe
This strawberry cookie recipe uses just a handful of simple ingredients for delicious cookies full of buttery, fruity flavor and crunchy, melt in your mouth texture.
Shortbread thumbprint cookies make an eye catching treat that's great for year round snacking, gifting, and care package shipping.
For Valentine shortbread cookies, this recipe adds strawberry extract to the shortbread dough and coats the cookies in pink and red sprinkles. The thumbprint at the center can be filled with your choice of fillings, like molded chocolate hearts , homemade chocolate kisses , or store bought candy.
Ingredients
Instructions
This is an overview of the instructions. The full instructions are in the recipe card below.
Chocolate Hearts
- Pipe melted chocolate into the heart mold cavities.
- Refrigerate the filled mold until the chocolate has firmed. Turn over the mold and tap on the counter to release or press the heart shapes out of silicone molds.
Cookies
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter, sugar, vanilla and strawberry extract. Add the flour and beat just until combined.
- Use a small (1 tablespoon) scoop to portion the dough. Roll each portion into a ball and roll the dough ball in the nonpareil sprinkles to cover completely.
- Place the sprinkle coated dough balls on a parchment lined cookie sheet and refrigerate for 10 minutes. Remove from the refrigerator and bake in a preheated oven at 350 degrees F for 10-12 minutes. While the cookies are baking, place the chocolate hearts in the freezer.
- Remove the cookies from the oven and allow to cool for about 2 minutes. Take the chocolate hearts out of the freezer and gently press one onto each cookie.
Storage
When the cookies are cool and the chocolate is firm, store at room temperature in an airtight container for up to two weeks.
Tips
- To make the hearts, melting chocolate discs, almond bark, or candy melts are the easiest candy to work with for best results.
- Tempered chocolate can also be used to make the molded heart candies.
- Melted chocolate chips are not recommended. The chocolate will "bloom" when the fat separates and the candy surface will have a white cast.
- Strawberry emultion provides the best cookie flavoring.
- Strawberry extract can be replaced with with 2 tablespoons of freeze-dried strawberry powder.
- Store bought chocolate candies can also be used. Be sure to freeze them before using to keep the chocolate from melting and loosing its shape on the hot cookie.
- Strawberry cookies also make great Easter cookies using pastel sprinkles and a chocolate Easter egg in the center.
Frequently asked questions
Chilling the shortbread before baking helps the cookies keep their thick, round cookie shapes.
Strawberry flavor emulsions are similar to strawberry extracts, however they differ in base such that emulsions are based in water and not in alcohol like extracts.
Strawberry extract is alcohol based and is less heat stable than strawberry flavoring emulsions which are water based. As a result, cookies made with flavoring emultions will retain more flavor after baking.
Intense strawberry flavor can be added to cookie dough using powdered, freeze-dried strawberries. Pulverize the freeze-dried berries into a fine powder using a food processor.
Thumbprint cookies with chocolate candy centers can be frozen for up to one month in a freezer weight plastic bag or airtight storage container.
Related Recipes
Vanilla Bean Shortbread Cookies are easy to make drop cookies with vanilla bean speckles and warm, creamy vanilla flavor.
Oatmeal Shortbread Cookies are buttery cookies with the toasty flavor of oats.
Spiced Chocolate Shortbread Cookies are rich chocolate slice and bake cookies for fans of Mexican chocolate.
Butter infused with tea makes Peach Tea Shortbread Cookies the perfect summer cookie.
Chocolate Peppermint Shortbread is bursting with bits of chopped chocolate and peppermint chips in a buttery, chocolate dough.
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Strawberry Shortbread Cookies
Equipment
Ingredients
Cookies
- 1 cup unsalted butter room temperature
- ⅔ cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoons strawberry extract or strawberry emulsion
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- ½ cup nonpareil sprinkles
Chocolate hearts
- 2 cups melting chocolate or candy melts
- (optional) pink oil based candy coloring
Instructions
Chocolate hearts
- In a small bowl, melt chocolate in the microwave at 50% power. For pink chocolate add pink oil based coloring to melted white chocolate, or use candy melts. Transfer the melted chocolate into a disposable piping bag.
- Pipe the chocolate into the heart mold cavities. Carefully, tap the mold on the counter to release any trapped air bubbles.
- Refrigerate the filled mold for 10-15 minutes until the chocolate has firmed. Remove from the fridge. Turn over the mold and tap on the counter to release or press heart shapes out of silicone molds.
Cookies
- Preheat oven to 350° F. Line a baking sheet with a sheet of parchment paper. Pour the nonpareil sprinkles into a shallow bowl.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream together the butter, sugar, vanilla and strawberry extract. Add the flour and beat just until combined.
- Use a small (1 tablespoon) scoop to portion the dough. Roll each portion into a ball and roll the dough ball in the nonpareil sprinkles to cover completely.
- Place the sprinkle coated dough balls on the prepared baking sheet about two inches apart. Refrigerate the baking sheet of dough balls for about 10 minutes.
- Remove from the refrigerator and bake for 10-12 minutes.
- While the cookies are baking, place the chocolate hearts in the freezer. Chilling the chocolate will keep it from quickly melting when placed on the hot cookies.
- Remove the cookies from the oven and allow to cool for about 2 minutes. The top of the cookies will still be light and the bottom should be just turning golden.
- Take the chocolate hearts out of the freezer and gently press one onto each cookie.
- Transfer the cookies onto a cutting board or platter and refrigerate for 20-30 minutes to keep the chocolate from melting while the cookie cools.
- When the cookies are cool and the chocolate is firm, store the cookies at room temperature in an airtight container for up to two weeks.
Notes
- Chilling the cookies for just 10 minutes before baking keeps the cookies from spreading. Rounded cookies are ideal for thumbprints.
- Freezing the chocolate while the cookies bake minimizes melting when the chocolate comes in contact with the warm cookie.
- Refrigerating the cookies will speed up the refirming of the added chocolate candy. If left at room temperature, the chocolate will take a long time to solidify on the slowly cooling cookie.
- Though Kisses are the most commonly used candy in these cookies, they are not ethically sourced. You might consider using making homemade Chocolate Kisses, Fair Trade chocolate bars (cut into small pieces), peanut butter cups (Aldi’s carries a UTZ brand), or jam/melted chocolate piped into the center.
- Layer cookies in an airtight container with wax paper between layers.
- Use crinkled tissue paper or wax paper between the top layer of cookies and the lid to ensure no movement while shipping.
- Or, wrap pairs of cookies, with bottoms together, in plastic wrap. Stack in freezer weight ziplock bags.
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