Easy Conversation Heart Cookies

It’s almost Valentine’s Day, and who doesn’t love conversation hearts?!

Well, me, honestly. And probably anyone else over the age of 8 who has functioning taste buds. But I can’t deny that they are adorable. That classic shape and chalky color, with stamped red sayings ranging from the sweet to the sassy. No other candy says “Valentine’s Day” more than conversation hearts.

But we aren’t candy makers here at The Cookie Countess—we’re cookiers! And if we are going to make conversation hearts, they’re going to be a lot yummier, that’s for sure. Here's an easy way to make Conversation Heart cookies that are sure to please anyone. 

Make a batch of your standard sugar cookie dough. Our sugar cookie recipe is ideal for this, as it is a no-spread recipe that holds its shape perfectly through the baking process. Stick with the standard vanilla, or change things up a little and add the flavoring extract of your choice.

Once your dough is mixing, add a good squeeze of white gel food coloring. I didn’t measure this part—I just wanted to see the dough turn from the normal buttery yellow to a chalky off-yellow color. This will be the base for our colors.

Divide the dough into even segments for however many colors you want to make. I wanted to make pink, blue, yellow, and green, so I cut my ball of dough into quarters and threw one chunk back into the bowl of my mixer at a time. I started with pink and then wiped down my bowl for the next color. From there I was able to move between colors without wiping it down, because of the color progression. I started with yellow, then moved to green, then did blue. Easy!  Since all of the dough already had a white base, I just added one drop of gel color to each of the yellow and green dough balls, and two each to the pink and blue (I felt one drop didn’t cut it with those two colors, for some reason, and I just wanted them to be a little brighter, so two drops did the trick). Mix the dough only long enough for the color to be combined, and you should end up with those classic Conversation Hearts pastels. You can also do this by hand, but either use gloves or be prepared for your hands to be very colorful.

Roll your dough balls out between sheets of parchment and chill. Although our sugar cookie recipe doesn’t technically have to be refrigerated, it can be helpful to do so in this case, since we’ll be stamping the dough. And it’s much easier to roll the dough flat now and then chill, instead of chilling balls of dough and then trying to roll them flat.

Once your flats of dough have chilled, we’re ready to stamp and cut. Our conversation hearts stamps are perfectly sized and shaped to go along with our heart cutter, so there’s no guessing game when you go to stamp the dough. I find it easiest to lightly use the heart cutter to stamp outlines all over my flat of dough so that I can see exactly where all of my cookies and edges will be. Once I have that done, I stamped each saying by aligning the stamp right over the heart outline and pressing gently. If you press until the stamp is flush to your cookie dough, you’ll have a more recessed design; if you stamp a little more lightly, the saying won’t be quite as deep into the dough. This is a total personal preference, in terms of what you want the finished product to look like. If you remove the stamp and discover that you haven’t pressed hard enough in one area or another, no worries—just realign the stamp and gently feel for it to settle back into the grooves you already made, press again, and remove. Easy peasy.

After your sayings are all fully stamped, use your heart cutter to cut the shapes out and move the dough to a cookie sheet lined with one of our mesh baking mats. Bake for about 9 minutes at 350*F, keeping an eye out to make sure the cookies aren’t browning. Remove and let cool.

When your cookies are cool, use a red edible marker to trace inside the grooves of the stamped lettering, really mimicking the look of traditional conversation heart candies.

And that’s it! Package them in a traditional cookie bag, box them, or even make mini cookie sandwiches from them with a layer of buttercream or ice cream in between. Conversation Heart candies could never be this versatile! 

To package your heart-shaped cookies just like this, use our food-safe, grease-resistant double-sided cookie backers to give them a polished and professional look. These backers not only provide support but also help keep the cookies from sliding around in their packaging. Slide the cookies into a clear bag to showcase their beautiful designs, and you’ve got a ready-to-go treat that’s perfect for gifting, selling, or sharing with loved ones!