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 cookie dough.
Ease: Super easy, just a little messy and hands-on.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: Fun and festive treat! You could also use other cookie dough shapes to make these for any other holiday or occasion.
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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 their 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 cookie dough lover. They make a great gift for birthdays or anniversaries, too!
Make sure to check out all my tips for this recipe in the box just below. If you try out these cookie dough hearts for Valentine’s Day, let me know in the comments below!
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make Chocolate-Covered Cookie Dough Hearts
How to Make Raw Cookie Dough Safe to Eat
- 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 hits 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.
The Chocolate
I prefer to use semisweet baking chocolate for coating these Cookie Dough Hearts. Use a quality baking bar and chop it up for best results. Don’t use chocolate chips, as they won’t melt down as smoothly.
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, so store refrigerated after a day or if it’s warm in your house.
- You could also use candy melts instead, but I just think the flavor of real melted chocolate is SO much better.
- Alternatively, you can temper the chocolate. More on that just below.
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.
Tools for Making Chocolate-Covered Cookie Dough Hearts
- An electric mixer
- Parchment paper
- Plastic wrap
- Baking sheet
- Chocolate dipping tools – Use these to neatly coat the hearts in chocolate – or alternatively, 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 of cookie cutters you like, but I generally prefer the smaller sizes to make them more like candy.
How to Store Cookie Dough Hearts
Store Cookie Dough Hearts inside an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week. Once the chocolate is set, you can stack them between sheets of parchment paper 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!
More Valentine’s Day Desserts Ideas:
- Chocolate Truffles
- Valentine’s Day Cake
- Chocolate Lava Cakes
- Nutella Stuffed Chocolate Raspberry Cupcakes
- Chocolate Strawberry Mini Cheesecakes
Check out our entire collection of even more Valentine’s Day recipes here!
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Ingredients
For the cookie dough:
- 1 stick (113 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) lightly packed light brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon milk (any kind)
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 (190 grams) cups all-purpose flour, see notes
- 1/8 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 3/4 cup (128 grams) miniature chocolate chips
For the chocolate coating:
- 16 ounces (454 grams) semisweet chocolate, chopped
- 1 teaspoon coconut oil or shortening
- Decorative sprinkles, if desired
Instructions
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 paper-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 parchment-lined rimmed 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.
- Serve at a cool room temperature.
Notes
This post was published in 2018 and has been updated with additional recipe tips and information. Photos by Lauren J. Photography.
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!