Celebrate Valentine’s Day with these special sugar cookie hearts with naturally dyed frosting!
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Happy Valentine’s week to you!
I did the volunteer thing for the classroom Valentine’s Day treat this year, so I figured what better way to get *all* these cookies done…than with a couple sweet little 6 year olds?!
Little kids and cookie decorating!
Chloe got to invite a friend over to decorate these cute little hearts and these girls are just too fun. The giggles were endless, and the cookies turned out so great.
This is my go-to gluten free sugar cookie cut out recipe – it is so easy to work with!
I am not much of a baker and don’t really like to mess around with fussy recipes. This dough is very forgiving and very nice to work with – especially for a gluten free dough. I found this little heart cookie cutter
that is perfect for a class treat – not oversized and not too tiny.
Natural *beautiful* color!
We used freeze dried raspberries
for the great Valentine’s Day frosting color, and left a handful of them frosted white in case any of the little guys in class were afraid of pink 😉 Freeze dried strawberries 
would work for that pretty color if you want too!
The frosting is just delicious!
Soft and sweet with amazing raspberry flavor – and that color! So pretty! Completely free of artificial dyes – because I don’t know about you, but if I were a school teacher I don’t think I would want my classroom all hopped up on Red 40 for the afternoon! I also think swapping the butter for cream cheese would make a delicious, tangy raspberry cream cheese frosting.
And since my kitchen was full of little girls for the afternoon, we of course had to break out the sparkly sprinkles!
You can get naturally dyed sugar sprinkles
and they are so fun to keep on hand for holidays! There are so many to choose from!
Gluten Free Valentine's Day Sugar Cookie Hearts With Naturally Dyed Frosting
Ingredients
FOR THE COOKIES:
- 1 cup softened butter if you are dairy free, you can use palm shortening
- 1 cup organic pure cane sugar
could use sucanat but the color will come out darker - 1 egg if you are egg free you can use a flax egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- ¼ tsp sea salt
- 1 cup tapioca flour
- ½ cup white rice flour
- ½ cup sorghum flour
- 1 tsp xanthan gum Do NOT leave this out – it helps the cookies rise. You will have a melted mess without it...I have the mess to prove it! It also makes rolling out the dough so much easier.
FOR THE RASPBERRY FROSTING
- 3 TB blended freeze dried raspberries Just put them into a blender and blend into powder. I used about 3/4 of a 1.2oz bag of freeze dried raspberries. You can add the rest if you want a deeper color. I blended the whole bag and am keeping the leftover powder in an airtight container for another time.
- 2 cups organic powdered cane sugar
- 1/4 cup softened butter
- 3-4 TB milk or coconut milk
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar.
- Add the egg, vanilla, and salt and blend.
- Add the flours and xanthan gum. Mix until well combined.
- Cover and refrigerate for 1 hour.
- Take the dough out of the fridge, and let it come to room temp for about 30 minutes.
- Lay out some parchment paper on the counter and flour it with white rice flour. Flour your hands and use the warmth of your hands to gently knead the dough, and then roll out the dough. (Use white rice flour on the rolling pin and parchment paper to keep the dough from sticking)
- Cut out your hearts and bake on a silpat (or parchment paper) lined baking sheet at 350 degrees for 11 minutes.
- Let the cookies cool completely before decorating. To make the frosting, just blend the frosting ingredients until smooth. You can add more milk if you wish for a thinner, more royal icing type of frosting.
For more real food treat ideas you can follow my Treat Ideas Board on Pinterest!
More real food recipes you might like:
Gluten Free Chocolate Chunk Blender Cookies
Chocolate Cake (Can be made cupcakes too!)
Aw looks like they had a fun time! And that color! 😍
I started using freeze dried strawberries for coloring but I bet raspberry is just delish. Can’t wait to try! 👍
What can I substitute for the x-gum ? Can’t wait to try these, looks yummy.
Hi Norma! There really is not a sub for that xanthan. In a recipe like this when you take it out they will become a melty mess. There isn’t anything quite like it that behaves like it. It not only binds but helps with rise. I have tried extra eggs in the past and it just doesn’t work. I’m sorry!
So fun! I bet the girls has a blast making {and eating} these. Such a fun school treat.
Beautiful recipe and darling faces! Yum!
Oh, my girls would love these! I love the natural dye… mmm!
Too cute for words! This looks like such a fun project not to mention delicious! Using dried raspberries as a natural food coloring is clever too!
Such fun photos! What a delightful recipe, tradition and time of year! Pinned and yummed!
I adore the photos of the girls! I just happen to have some frozen raspberries in the freezer. Love the idea of raspberries as natural food coloring.
Aren’t you lucky to have such great sous chefs! And I bet they’re glad to be paid with food! These look so yummy!
Such a pretty pink color and the touch of raspberry flavor sounds great!
Ha! These don’t have to just be for Valentine’s Day! I am all about these, YEAR ROUND! 😉
I cannot use xanthun gum either because it is a derivative of corn. So I use gaur gum. Think that would work?
Hi Amanda! I’m not familiar with how guar gum works – are you usually able to swap xanthan for it in baked goods?
These are too cute and so much fun! I love that you used natural dyes too.
These are beautiful, and the raspberry frosting has me dying, yum!!
Perfect timing! Can’t wait to try these with my kiddos.
I use powdered, freeze-dried strawberries and raspberries quite a bit for things like this, but never raspberries for frosting. I bet it’s delicious and I cant wait to try it!
I can’t find the sourgum flour anywhere in GR. Any substitions? Thank you!
Hi Amy! I usually get it at Meijer or any of the health food stores – harvest health has it usually. You could swap all of the GF Flour for the Namaste GF flour blend too 🙂
Great! I have that! Thank you!
You’re welcome!
Thank you!
You’re welcome!
Is there something I could use in place of the white rice flour? 😬
Hi Jodie! I typically swap all of the flour now for a GF Flour blend like Namaste – when I wrote this recipe those weren’t as readily available!