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| Valentine's Day
These Sugar Cookie Bars are the perfect treat to make for Valentine’s Day this year and are so delicious and easy to make! The best part about these bars aside from their delicious flavor and soft and chewy texture is that it is totally customizable to fit your preference.
How To Make Sugar Cookie Bars
This recipe is so easy and yummy! There are a few key components to pay close attention to to ensure that you will be left with the most delicious results.
Preparing The Cookie Dough
The cookie dough is made using typical and basic cookie dough ingredients. The texture of the dough however will be a bit sticker to a cookie dough that you could roll out. The first key to making a great sugar cookie dough is in the creaming of the butter and sugar. Ensuring that these two ingredients are properly combined helps to ensure that the overall taste and texture of our cookies will be soft, slightly chewy, and have a light airiness to them all at the same time.
Tips Before Decorating
It’s important to ensure that our bars are completely cooled before we begin decorating otherwise the buttercream will melt on top and we won’t have our nice clean finish. I used various small star tips to trace over the lines I made with an edible marker to pipe my hearts. You can find the edible marers I used, here!
Decorating Sugar Cookie Bars With Buttercream
After I used various-sized heart cookie cutters and an edible marker to trace all over the top of my baked and cooled sugar cookie bars, I used red and pink buttercream to trace over all of the little hearts. Next, I went in with some white buttercream to fill in all of the blank areas on the bars.
Other Decorating Ideas
Always feel free to add your twist on recipes especially when it comes to the decorating part! You can use different flavors of buttercream, different extracts in the cookie dough, add sprinkles on top, and so much more! Feel free to frost these with different styles as well – even as simple as using a butterknife to spread the buttercream on top. These bars are totally customizable and so much fun to make and share with friends and family!
How To Store Valentine’s Day Sugar Cookie Bars
These delicious bars should be stored in an air-tight container or sealed bag and kept in the fridge for up to one week. They can also be stored in the freezer for up to 3 months. That way if you would like to make these ahead of time and be prepared for your next event, you can! But of course, they can also be enjoyed fresh!
How To Slice My Sugar Cookie Bars Evenly
I find that it’s easier to allow my bars to chill in the fridge for 20 minutes before slicing them into squares. This allows for the buttercream to set and harden slightly so that you get a nice, clean cut. It also helps to wipe your knife off after every slice so that it’s clean and doesn’t smudge colored buttercream on areas where it does not belong.
More Recipes You Might Enjoy
- Valentine’s Day Pillsbury Sugar Cookie Cheesecake
- Valentine’s Day Cream Puffs
- Valentine’s Day Sandwich Cookies
- Chocolate Chunk Blondies
- Valentine’s Day Cosmic Brownies
Valentine’s Day Cookie Bars
5.0 from 1 vote
Recipe by Maddison Koutrouba – thesqueakymixer.com
Servings
12
servings
Cooking time
40
minutes
Cook Mode
Keep the screen of your device on.
Ingredients
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
4 eggs, room temperature
3 tsp. vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
- Vanilla Buttercream
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
3-5 Tbsp. heavy cream
1/4 tsp. salt
2 tsp. vanilla extract
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a 9″ x 13″ pan with parchment paper and lightly grease. Set aside.
- In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In a separate, larger bowl use an electric mixer or stand mixer fit with a paddle attachment to beat the butter and sugar for 2 minutes or until light and fluffy.
- Add the eggs and vanilla to the butter mixture and continue to mix on low speed to fully combine everything.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet and mix until a nice, smooth dough forms. The dough will be sticky – don’t worry!
- Transfer the dough to the prepared pan and spread evenly with an offset spatula or silicone spatula until evenly distributed throughout.
- Bake for 18-22 minutes or until golden brown along the edges. Allow to cool completely in the pan that it was baked in. While this cools you can prepare the buttercream.
- To make the buttercream, use an electric mixer or a stand mixer with a paddle attachment to cream together the butter and the sugar.
- Gradually add in the heavy cream, salt, and vanilla. Whip this up until it is a light, smooth, and airy buttercream.
- Separate the buttercream into three different bowls and dye two of the bowls red and pink. You can get creative with this step and customize the cake to your liking. Place the different buttercreams in separate piping bags fit with various star tips then set aside.
- Use different heart-shaped cookie cutters and edible markers to trace hearts all over the top of the cooled cookie cake.
- Use your various colors of buttercream to pipe over and trace the hearts that we outlined in the previous step. Use the color of your choice, I used white, to fill in the remaining space of the cookie.
- Allow the buttercream to set in the fridge for about 15 minutes for a more even cut. Slice into squares and enjoy!
Did you make this recipe?
Tag @thesqueakymixer on Instagram! I love to see what you all create.
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