Valentine’s Day is just around the corner! These Dye free cookies for Valentine’s Day are the perfect treat to make to surprise your family, send in for a class party or serve at a Galentine’s get together!

Jump to Recipe

What makes these cookies dye free?

Yup, you read that right! These are completely dye free cookies! How are we getting the beautiful pink color? We are using freeze dried strawberries! Not only do these give the cookies this fun pink color but it also gives them a delicious strawberry flavor!

I’m going to show you down below how we do this by blending the freeze dried strawberries and adding them into our delicious cream cheese frosting!

Can you make these cookies ahead of time?

Yes! There are a few options if you would like to get a head start on making these the day before your plan to share them.

You can make dough for these valentine’s cookies the day before and let it chill in the fridge overnight until you are ready to bake them.

Another option is to make just the cookies and store in an airtight container until you are ready to frost and serve them.

The final way you can prepare these in advance is to make and frost the cookies ahead of time. You will need to store them in an airtight container in your fridge until ready to serve since the frosting contains cream cheese.

Making the cookies

Ingredients:

3/4 cup of salted butter at room temperature
1 cup of white sugar
1/3 cup of milk
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
2 eggs
4 cups of all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder

Beat the butter and sugar together until you have a light and fluffy consistency.

Add the eggs, milk and vanilla extract to the butter and sugar mixture.

In a separate bowl, combine the flour, salt and baking powder together.

Add dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. Add a little at a time until everything is well combined, and you have a ball of dough.

Sprinkle some flour on your workspace and roll out dough until you it’s about 1/2 inch thick. Use a heart shaped cookie cutter to cut out cookies.

Place cookies on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and bake at 350 degrees for about 10-11 minutes.

Once removed from the oven, place cookies on a wire rack to cool. Cookies should be completely cooled before you frost them.

Making the dye free frosting

Ingredients:

8 ounces softened cream cheese
1/2 cup softened butter
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1 oz of freeze dried strawberries
5-6 cups of powdered sugar
1-2 tablespoons of milk (as needed to thin out frosting if the consistency is too thick)

Beat butter and cream cheese in mixer with the whisk attachment until well combined and smooth.

Add half of the powder sugar and vanilla extract. Beat well.

Use blender or food processor to turn freeze dried strawberries into a powdery consistency.

Add the strawberry powder to the frosting mixture and beat well.

Add remaining powdered sugar and continue to beat until everything is incorporated well. Add milk 1 tablespoon at a time as needed to thin out the frosting if it seems too thick.

Now it’s time to get to frosting your cookies! Again, make sure that they are completely cooled before you start frosting!

Originally, I did try to use a piping bag with a tip to frost these cookies, but I quickly realized that I don’t know who I actually thought I was because I just made a huge mess! If you are talented cookie or cake decorator, you could absolutely use this method and make your cookies extra fancy. For me, I found a more practical approach was necessary and so I ended up just using a knife.

But I think they still turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself!

You are ready to serve! These dye free cookies are going to be huge hit this Valentines day!

Let me know if you try them!