These adorable no-bake chocolate covered Cookie Dough Hearts are the perfect homemade chocolate treat for Valentine’s Day, no chocolate tempering or candy melts required! Download my FREE Valentine's Day Recipe Guide here!
Prep Time:20minutes
Tessa's Recipe Rundown...
Taste: Just like cookie dough, but with even more chocolate! Texture: The chocolate coating is crisp and snappy, the perfect contrast to the soft and slightly grainy cookie dough. Ease: Super easy, just a little messy and hands-on. Pros: Fun and festive treat! You could also use other cookie dough shapes to make these for any other holiday or occasion. Cons: These are best served at a cool room temperature. So if it’s a hot or humid day, or if you wanted to serve these outside in the sun, they won’t hold up for long. Would I make this again? Yes!
Valentine’s Day is just around the corner and these chocolate covered Cookie Dough Hearts would be the perfect homemade candy to make!
I think they’d be just adorable to bring to work for your colleagues.
Or make them with your kids to bring to the classroom. Or, my personal favorite would be these + a bottle of rose for GALentine’s Day!
They’re super easy to make, you don’t even need to turn on your oven. Plus you can have fun with festive sprinkles, who doesn’t love that?
These cookie dough hearts are the perfect homemade dessert for any chocolate lover. They’d even be a great treat for an anniversary!
Make sure to check out all my tips for this recipe in the pink box below. If you try these cookie dough hearts out for Valentine’s Day, let me know in the comments!
How to Make Chocolate Covered Cookie Dough Hearts
Ingredients you’ll need:
Butter – Make sure to use unsalted, room temperature butter.
Brown sugar
Granulated sugar
Milk – Any kind will work.
Vanilla extract
All-purpose flour – see my note for making this raw edible cookie dough safe below!
Salt
Miniature chocolate chips
Semisweet chocolate for coating – For best results, chop up baking chocolate for the coating. Chocolate chips just won’t melt down as smoothly and will be much harder to dip into pretty hearts.
Coconut oil or shortening – Details below!
Tools you’ll need:
An electric mixer
Parchment paper
Plastic wrap
Baking sheet
Chocolate dipping tools – Use these to neatly coat the hearts in chocolate, otherwise just use a regular fork. Just be sure to allow the excess chocolate to drip off before placing on the parchment paper!
Heart-shaped cookie cutters – You can use any size or style of that you want, but I generally prefer the smaller sizes to make them more like candy.
How to Make RAW Cookie Dough Safe?
This recipe contains no eggs, so you don’t have to worry about that.
To make the raw flour safer we need to kill bacteria. Treat the flour by baking it at 350°F for 10 minutes or microwaving in 30 second bursts until it reaches 165°F. Use an instant read thermometer to guarantee it hit the temperature at which bacteria dies.
Heating the flour in the oven also toasts it slightly, giving it a nutty caramelized flavor that works beautifully in this recipe.
Why is there coconut oil in this recipe?
In this recipe, we use a small amount of virgin coconut oil in the melted chocolate to make the coating. This allows the chocolate to harden into a nice snappy shell without requiring tempering. The coconut taste is barely noticeable!
If you don’t want to use coconut oil, you can also use the same amount of shortening.
Whichever you decide to use, just note that the chocolate will begin to get melty if it’s left out in a warmer room. The hearts should be stored in the fridge after a day.
You could also use candy melts instead, but I just think the flavor of real melted chocolate is SO much better.
How to temper chocolate (optional!):
The only way to make the hearts more “shelf stable” while still tasting delicious is by tempering the chocolate instead. Learn how to temper chocolate here.
How to Store Cookie Dough Hearts
Store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week. If they last that long! Once the chocolate is set, you can stack them between sheets of parchment to save space.
How to Make Ahead of Time
You can prepare the cookie dough, roll it out, cover and refrigerate it overnight. This might be a good idea if you want to cut out the heart shapes and dip into chocolate with little ones for a fun Valentine’s Day edible craft project!
These adorable no-bake chocolate covered Cookie Dough Hearts are the perfect homemade chocolate treat for Valentine’s Day, no chocolate tempering or candy melts required! Download my FREE Valentine's Day Recipe Guide here!
Ingredients
For the cookie dough:
1stick (113 grams) unsalted butter,at room temperature
1/2cup(100 grams) lightly packed light brown sugar
2tablespoonsgranulated sugar
1tablespoonmilk (any kind)
1/2teaspoonvanilla extract
1 1/2(190 grams) cups all-purpose flour, see notes
1/8teaspoonfine salt
3/4cup(128 grams) miniature chocolate chips
For the chocolate coating:
16ounces(454 grams) semisweet chocolate,chopped
1teaspooncoconut oil or shortening
Decorative sprinkles,if desired
Directions
Make the cookie dough:
In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter, brown sugar, and granulated sugar on medium-high speed until very well combined and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add in the milk and vanilla. On low speed gradually add the flour and salt. Stir in the miniature chocolate chips.
Scoop the dough out onto a parchment lined worked surface. Cover with a large sheet of plastic wrap and roll it out with a rolling pin until it reaches about 1/2-inch in thickness. Freeze for 15 minutes. Use a heart-shaped cookie cutter to cut out pieces of cookie dough. Place on a rimmed parchment-lined baking sheet and freeze until firm, at least 30 minutes.
Make the chocolate coating:
In a heat-safe bowl, combine the semisweet chocolate and coconut oil. Microwave in 30 second bursts, stirring between bursts, until melted and smooth. Dip the firm and very cold cookie dough hearts into the chocolate, allowing the excess to drip back into the bowl. Place on the prepared baking sheet. Decorate with sprinkles, if desired. Refrigerate until set.
Recipe Notes
To make the raw flour safer for consumption, we need to kill bacteria. See details in the pink box above this recipe on how to do that.You could also decorate with a small amount of melted white chocolate, if you prefer!
I share trusted baking recipes your friends will LOVE alongside insights into the science of sweets. I'm a professionally trained chef, cookbook author, and cookie queen. I love to write about all things sweet, carb-y, and homemade. I live in Phoenix, Arizona (hence the blog name!)
About Tessa...
I share trusted baking recipes your friends will LOVE alongside insights into the science of sweets. I'm a professionally trained chef, cookbook author, and cookie queen. I love to write about all things sweet, carb-y, and homemade. I live in Phoenix, Arizona (hence the blog name!)
I made this with tempered chocolate, and it is delicious. My significant other loves cookie dough ice cream, so I made these to surprise him for Valentine’s Day. I think they may become an annual February tradition.
I love these little hearts! The taste is really delicious. However, every time I make the (and I have tried about 10 different times at least) the dough does not stay together. It crumbles and falls apart when I try to use the cutout. It is like they are too dry. What am I doing wrong? It is SuPER frustrating! I end up throwing most if the dough in the garbage.
Please help I really would like to make these correctly. Thank you!
So sorry to hear of your issues, Tammy! Are you using a digital scale to measure your flour? Depending on your climate/location, it’s also possible that a bit more liquid (milk) may need to be added to your dough. Try adding a teaspoon at a time until you reach a better consistency. Please let me know how your next attempt goes, fingers crossed this fixes it!
My dough also turned out very crumbly (heated the flour according to the instructions). I added a total of 5 tbsp of milk in the end to get a nice consistency. Rolled the dough out between sheets of parchment without an issue.
The brown sugar that I used was very coarse, so it didn’t fully dissolve when beating the sugar together with the butter, but gave it a nice extra crunch! I used salted butter and skipped the extra salt, which works just fine. The dough tastes great, and even better after chilling. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Glad this recipe still turned out well for you! Did you use a digital scale to accurately measure your flour? Crumbly cookie dough is usually due to too much flour being added to the dough. Check out my article about how to measure flour here. Hope that helps!
These came out pretty perfect. I did not have an issue with the dough being too crumbly after heating the flour. They are incredibly rich, I would recommend keeping your pieces on the smaller size. I don’t have a heart shaped cookie cutter so I just hand cut a few hearts and did round cut outs after that. I would say to keep them no larger than about 1-2” in diameter. After the chocolate had set, let them get to room temp to eat. Very good recipe!
The dough does not hold together like traditional cookie dough. Rolling the dough out with plastic wrap on top made it worse. I ended up flattening it out with my hands to try and get it to stay together. The dough was crumbly and didn’t stay cohesive, even after freezing. It cracked when cutting it with a cookie cutter. Next time, I’ll make the dough with more moisture. Also, I’ll just drizzle chocolate on top instead of coating; the chocolate coating was a bit too much, for me anyway. They tasted good though. I would advise you make the requirement to bake the flour to make it safe more prominent in the recipe. No one reads the 13 paragraphs between title and recipe; everyone jumps to the recipe, which means they miss the part where it’s important to make the flour safe to eat.
How many would these yield, approximately? Considering that I would also like to use a small-ish cookie cutter…
I want to make these for five people, so I’m wondering how many batches I ought to make!
The yield definitely depends on what size cookie cutter you use! I typically yield around 16 medium cookie dough hearts from one batch. I hope that helps!
Hi! I made this recipe and it ended up tasting very yummy, but the cookie dough was not soft like normal dough it was really crumbly. Did I do something wrong?
I followed the directions as stated. Please let me know if you have any advice. Thanks
Hi Maria, I’m sorry your cookie dough didn’t turn out correctly! Crumbly cookie dough is usually due to too much flour being added to the dough. Did you use a digital scale to accurately measure your flour? Check out my article for how to measure flour here. Hope that helps!
Same happened to me! I baked the flour as instructed to kill the bacteria. In the video looks like more than 1 Tbsp milk added? My dough was dry and cracking. I used your tip to add 3 Tbsp warm water to moisten the dough while mixing it again and it was way better. Just hope they taste okay with water? Were yours okay? Wish that tip would have been mentioned. Took way longer than just making regular cookies. But in the end if they taste good I’m happy!
These look amazing and so cute!! Can you make these to the point of freezing them and freeze them for a couple of days before dipping them in the chocolate??
I can’t wait to make these! Do you think that the cookie dough hearts could be used as dippers for fondue? Would they hold their shape or fall apart in the chocolate?
Once the chocolate coating is set you can store them in the fridge! Be careful about wrapping / storing in a container though because any condensation will negatively affect the chocolate coating.
These look so cute I had to make them! I did bake the flour as suggested in earlier comments, but the cookie dough was super crumbly, and even after rolling out and freezing it would not hold together. I put it back in the mixer and added three tablespoons of filtered water and that worked great! So if you bake the flour, you will have to compensate for the moisture loss. Great recipe!
My son has celiac disease and I would love to make these for him to share with my daughter-in-law. Can I just substitute One2One flour or do I need to add anything else? Thank you
I can’t wait to try this, it looks so good! Just a tip: its good to pre-bake the measured flour on a parchment lined baking sheet for 5-10 minutes at 300F, then let it cool completely to ensure all the bad bacteria has been killed off.
Being a raw cookie dough addict myself, I find desserts like this an absolute must in my recipe collection.The idea of skipping using the oven to make a dessert is especially intriguing, making the process simpler and faster. I’m sure I’ll be blasting my pandora music while following this easy recipe, and making Valentine’s treats for my loved ones. The suggestion of adding coconut oil to the chocolate is a wonderful idea! I can’t wait to try it!
As a trained chef and cookbook author, I share trusted baking recipes your friends & family will love alongside insights into the science of sweets. I help take the luck out of baking so you *always* have delicious results! Learn more here.
Over 200 pages with 50+ cookie recipes that'll make
you a COOKIE PRO. Discover how to turn your biggest cookie flops into WINS by mastering the
sweet science of baking. Even learn how to customize your own recipes! Beautiful, hardcopy,
full color, photos of every recipe so you know EXACTLY how your cookies should look. Order
now to have the book delivered to your doorstep!
Do you want a more delicious life?
Instead of digging through cookbooks and magazines and searching the internet for amazing
recipes, subscribe to Handle the Heat to receive new recipe posts delivered straight to your
email inbox. You’ll get all the latest recipes, videos, kitchen tips and tricks AND my
*free* Cookie Customization Guide (because I am the Cookie Queen)!
great! made them gluten, dairy free and low carbish. about 12 carbs per piece. I got 12 from this recipe. making again no question.
I made this with tempered chocolate, and it is delicious. My significant other loves cookie dough ice cream, so I made these to surprise him for Valentine’s Day. I think they may become an annual February tradition.
So happy you loved this recipe!
I love these little hearts! The taste is really delicious. However, every time I make the (and I have tried about 10 different times at least) the dough does not stay together. It crumbles and falls apart when I try to use the cutout. It is like they are too dry. What am I doing wrong? It is SuPER frustrating! I end up throwing most if the dough in the garbage.
Please help I really would like to make these correctly. Thank you!
So sorry to hear of your issues, Tammy! Are you using a digital scale to measure your flour? Depending on your climate/location, it’s also possible that a bit more liquid (milk) may need to be added to your dough. Try adding a teaspoon at a time until you reach a better consistency. Please let me know how your next attempt goes, fingers crossed this fixes it!
My dough also turned out very crumbly (heated the flour according to the instructions). I added a total of 5 tbsp of milk in the end to get a nice consistency. Rolled the dough out between sheets of parchment without an issue.
The brown sugar that I used was very coarse, so it didn’t fully dissolve when beating the sugar together with the butter, but gave it a nice extra crunch! I used salted butter and skipped the extra salt, which works just fine. The dough tastes great, and even better after chilling. Thanks for sharing the recipe.
Glad this recipe still turned out well for you! Did you use a digital scale to accurately measure your flour? Crumbly cookie dough is usually due to too much flour being added to the dough. Check out my article about how to measure flour here. Hope that helps!
These came out pretty perfect. I did not have an issue with the dough being too crumbly after heating the flour. They are incredibly rich, I would recommend keeping your pieces on the smaller size. I don’t have a heart shaped cookie cutter so I just hand cut a few hearts and did round cut outs after that. I would say to keep them no larger than about 1-2” in diameter. After the chocolate had set, let them get to room temp to eat. Very good recipe!
So glad you enjoyed!
The dough does not hold together like traditional cookie dough. Rolling the dough out with plastic wrap on top made it worse. I ended up flattening it out with my hands to try and get it to stay together. The dough was crumbly and didn’t stay cohesive, even after freezing. It cracked when cutting it with a cookie cutter. Next time, I’ll make the dough with more moisture. Also, I’ll just drizzle chocolate on top instead of coating; the chocolate coating was a bit too much, for me anyway. They tasted good though. I would advise you make the requirement to bake the flour to make it safe more prominent in the recipe. No one reads the 13 paragraphs between title and recipe; everyone jumps to the recipe, which means they miss the part where it’s important to make the flour safe to eat.
How many would these yield, approximately? Considering that I would also like to use a small-ish cookie cutter…
I want to make these for five people, so I’m wondering how many batches I ought to make!
The yield definitely depends on what size cookie cutter you use! I typically yield around 16 medium cookie dough hearts from one batch. I hope that helps!
I already made them n I forgot to pre heat the flour is it too late or is there anything to do?
Oh no! I’m sorry, I know that’s frustrating. I wish I had better news but my advice would be to start over!
Hi! I made this recipe and it ended up tasting very yummy, but the cookie dough was not soft like normal dough it was really crumbly. Did I do something wrong?
I followed the directions as stated. Please let me know if you have any advice. Thanks
Hi Maria, I’m sorry your cookie dough didn’t turn out correctly! Crumbly cookie dough is usually due to too much flour being added to the dough. Did you use a digital scale to accurately measure your flour? Check out my article for how to measure flour here. Hope that helps!
Same happened to me! I baked the flour as instructed to kill the bacteria. In the video looks like more than 1 Tbsp milk added? My dough was dry and cracking. I used your tip to add 3 Tbsp warm water to moisten the dough while mixing it again and it was way better. Just hope they taste okay with water? Were yours okay? Wish that tip would have been mentioned. Took way longer than just making regular cookies. But in the end if they taste good I’m happy!
These look amazing and so cute!! Can you make these to the point of freezing them and freeze them for a couple of days before dipping them in the chocolate??
I can’t wait to make these! Do you think that the cookie dough hearts could be used as dippers for fondue? Would they hold their shape or fall apart in the chocolate?
how do you store them and how long can you keep them
Once the chocolate coating is set you can store them in the fridge! Be careful about wrapping / storing in a container though because any condensation will negatively affect the chocolate coating.
These look so cute I had to make them! I did bake the flour as suggested in earlier comments, but the cookie dough was super crumbly, and even after rolling out and freezing it would not hold together. I put it back in the mixer and added three tablespoons of filtered water and that worked great! So if you bake the flour, you will have to compensate for the moisture loss. Great recipe!
My son has celiac disease and I would love to make these for him to share with my daughter-in-law. Can I just substitute One2One flour or do I need to add anything else? Thank you
This recipe looks amazing! Hafsa’s comment is right tho… one needs to bake the flour first to make it food safe.
What brand of baking chocolate are you using in this recipe? Ty 🙂
I can’t wait to try this, it looks so good! Just a tip: its good to pre-bake the measured flour on a parchment lined baking sheet for 5-10 minutes at 300F, then let it cool completely to ensure all the bad bacteria has been killed off.
very clever recipe, adorable too, can I see these applied to a clover leaf in the near future too? Thank you!
Being a raw cookie dough addict myself, I find desserts like this an absolute must in my recipe collection.The idea of skipping using the oven to make a dessert is especially intriguing, making the process simpler and faster. I’m sure I’ll be blasting my pandora music while following this easy recipe, and making Valentine’s treats for my loved ones. The suggestion of adding coconut oil to the chocolate is a wonderful idea! I can’t wait to try it!