Love Bug Cookies
These Love Bug Cookies feature delicious, heart-shaped sugar cookies frosted and decorated to look like adorable love bugs. They’re sweet and easy, and they make a great Valentine’s Day treat.
This Valentine’s Day serve these adorable cookies to family, friends, or even your special someone. They’re a sweet, delicious treat that’s perfect for the sweet ones in your life.
Table of contents
❤️ Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- It only uses a few basic ingredients.
- At its heart, it’s simply a frosted sugar cookie recipe.
- The love bug frosting and decoration are absolutely adorable.
- It’s the perfect snack to serve to guests or to give as a Valentine’s gift.
🛒Ingredients
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You’ll only need basic baking ingredients to make this recipe, and you probably have most of them in your kitchen right now. The major players in this recipe are listed below, but the recipe card at the end of the post will have the complete list of ingredients along with amounts.
For the Cookies
- Sugar
- Softened unsalted butter
- Vanilla
- Mini chocolate chips
- Vanilla frosting
- Homemade chocolate frosting
- Pink or red food coloring
- Candy eyes
For the Chocolate Frosting
- Unsalted butter
- Cocoa powder
- Powdered sugar
- Vanilla
- Milk
🔪 How to Make Love Bug Cookies
These cookies are fairly simple to make. It’s really just a basic sugar cookie recipe that’s frosted with fun colors. That’s it!
Step 1: Make the Cookie Dough
Combine sugar and butter in a large mixing bowl with a hand mixer on medium speed. Then, add egg yolks and vanilla and mix again until combined. Finally, add the flour and beat on low speed, increasing to medium speed until combined.
Step 2: Roll
Place a piece of parchment paper on a flat surface. Place half the dough on the parchment paper and the other half in the refrigerator. Sprinkle with flour, then add a second piece of parchment paper over the dough. Roll the dough to 1/2-inch thickness with a rolling pin.
Step 3: Cut and Bake
Cut out the cookies with a heart cookie cutter, then transfer the cookies to an ungreased baking sheet using a spatula. Leave about an inch between each cookie. Bake for 8 to 12 minutes at 350 until the edges are golden brown.
Step 4: Cool
Remove the cookie sheet from the oven and let the cookies cool on it for about 2 minutes. Then, transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Step 5: Make the Frosting
Melt the butter in the microwave in a microwaveable bowl. Then, add the cocoa powder and stir until smooth. Next, add the powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk and stir until smooth. Add a splash of milk if the frosting is too thick.
Step 6: Prep the Decorations
Transfer the chocolate frosting to a sandwich bag and snip off a corner. Set it aside. Then, mix the food coloring into the vanilla frosting until you reach your desired color intensity. Transfer the frosting to another sandwich bag, snip off the corner, and set aside. Finally, melt the mini chocolate chips and transfer the melted chocolate to a sandwich bag, snip off a very small corner, and set it aside.
Step 7: Decorate
Pipe a circle of chocolate frosting onto the bottom of the cookie. Then, pipe an outline of vanilla frosting around the edge of the chocolate frosting and the outside edge of the cookie. Fill in with more vanilla frosting. Add candy eyes to the chocolate frosting to make the ladybug face, the pipe two small antennae on the head with the melted chocolate. Finally, place mini chocolate chips, tip-side down all over the frosting wings to complete the look.
📝Variations
Do you want to change up this recipe and make it your own? Here are some ways that you can do that!
- Chocolate Frosting – You can use storebought frosting if you like.
- Sugar Cookie Dough – You can use storebought dough for this recipe.
- Simple Hearts – For a super easy variation, just frost the entire cookie with red frosting for frosted heart cookies.
If you like frosted sugar cookies, then check out these birthday cake sugar cookies.
🥄 Equipment
- Measuring cups and spoons
- Mixing bowl
- Stand or hand mixer
- Rollin pin
- Cookie sheet
- Sandwich bags
- Heart cookie cutter
🥫 Storage
Store these cookies in an air-tight container for up to 5 days in the refrigerator.
💭 Tips
- Loosely spoon your flour into the measuring cup and level it off with a knife for an accurate measurement.
- Remove the cookies as soon as the edges begin to brown and let them cool on the baking sheet for perfect cookies.
- For the perfect frosting job, always start with an outline, then fill it in.
⁉️ FAQ
Do you have questions about this recipe? Here are the answers to the most commonly asked questions.
The frosting on these cookies requires refrigeration, so the frosted cookies have to be refrigerated.
Start with an outline of frosting. Then, pipe in the middle to fill in the outline. This leaves a neat, uniform edge.
You probably added too much flour. That’s easy to do if you simply scoop the flour out with your measuring cup. Scooping straight into the cup results in packing, which leads to too much flour.
🍽 More Recipes
Do you enjoy Valentine treats? Then try these delicious recipes:
📌 PIN IT!!
🧾Recipe Card
Want to make this recipe? Print the recipe card below, or pin this recipe, so you can find it later.
Love Bug Cookies
Equipment
- Measuring Cups and Spoons
- Mixing Bowl
- Stand or hand mixer
- Rollin pin
- Cookie sheet
- Sandwich bags
- heart cookie cutter
Ingredients
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 cup unsalted butter softened
- 2 egg yolks discard whites
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 ¼ cups gluten-free all purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon sea salt
- 16 oz. tub of vanilla frosting
- Chocolate frosting recipe below
- ½ cup mini chocolate chips
- Pink or red food coloring
- Candy eyes
Chocolate Frosting
- 1.5 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder
- ¾ cups powdered sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ½ tablespoon milk
Instructions
- Prepare the heart sugar cookies: Add sugar and softened butter to a large mixing bowl. Use a hand mixer to mix on medium speed until combined.
- Add egg yolks and vanilla to the bowl. Mix again until incorporated.
- Add flour to the bowl. Start mixer on low speed and increase to medium speed, mixing until fully combined.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Lay a piece of parchment paper on a flat surface. Sprinkle with flour and add half of the cookie dough, placing the remaining cookie dough in the fridge. Sprinkle the top of the dough with flour. Add parchment paper on top of the dough and use a rolling pin to roll out the dough to ¼” thickness.
- Use heart-shaped cookie cutters to cut out cookies.
- Use a metal spatula to carefully transfer the cookies to an ungreased baking sheet, leaving at least 1” in between cookies.
- Place baking sheet in preheated oven and bake for 8-12 minutes or until edges of cookies are golden brown. Allow cookies to remain on baking sheet for 2 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
- While cookies are cooling, prepare the chocolate frosting: Add butter to a microwave safe bowl and microwave until melted.
- Add cocoa powder and stir until smooth.
- Add powdered sugar, vanilla extract and ½ tablespoon milk to the bowl. Stir until combined and smooth. Add an extra splash of milk to the frosting if it is too thick.
- Transfer chocolate frosting to a sandwich bag and snip off a corner. Set aside.
- Add food coloring to the vanilla frosting. Stir in additional food coloring until desired color is achieved. Transfer the frosting to a sandwich bag and snip off a corner.
- Melt 1 tablespoon of mini chocolate chips in the microwave. Transfer melted chocolate to a sandwich bag. Snip off a very small corner of the bag and set aside.
- Decorate the cookies, starting with the chocolate frosting. Pipe a circle of chocolate frosting onto the bottom of a heart shaped cookie. Use the colored vanilla frosting to pipe the ladybug wings. Create an outline around the remaining edges of the top of the heart all the way back down to the head. Fill in the wings with frosting.
- Add two candy eyes to the chocolate frosted circle to create the ladybug face.
- Use the melted chocolate to pipe two small antennae onto the cookie.
- Place mini chocolate chips tip side down onto the wings to complete the ladybug valentine cookie.
- Repeat this process until all cookies are decorated. Enjoy!
