Food and Recipes Recipes Marbled Sugar Heart Cookies Decorating cookies can be intimidating. If you've never used a piping bag or made your own royal icing, the idea of making beautiful, intricate decorated cookies may sound enticing, but prove to be much more complicated than expected. We wanted to create a cookie design that even beginner decorators (and kids!) could easily accomplish. Let me introduce you to Marbled Heart Cookies. These simple Marbled Heart Cookies are a great introduction to the art of cookie decorating; they don't require any special supplies or equipment (no piping bags necessary) and, aside from the baking itself, require very little time. We use 4 different icing colors in these cookies, but another great virtue of this recipe is its potential for customization. You can use any combination of colors you'd like, or even cut the cookies into a completely different shape. We love these pink and purple hearts for Valentine's Day, but with this simple technique, you can make orange marbled pumpkins for Halloween or green marbled clovers for St. Patrick's Day. By Zoe Denenberg Zoe Denenberg As a professional baker, Zoe Denenberg has spent the past two years traveling across the country—from Alabama to Hawai'i—working in farm-focused pastry kitchens. She has written about food, travel, and culture for Southern Living since 2019. See more of Zoe's work at https://zoedenenberg.wixsite.com/portfolio and follow her on Instagram. Southern Living's editorial guidelines Published on February 12, 2020 Print Share Share Tweet Pin Email Photo: Zoe Denenberg; Prop Styling: Grant Gaar Ingredients Easy Sugar Cookies Royal Icing Heart-shaped cookie cutter Pink, red, and purple food coloring Directions Make Easy Sugar Cookies, cut with heart-shaped cookie cutter. Make flood-consistency Royal Icing. Divide white Royal Icing equally into 4 bowls. Set 1 bowl aside. In the remaining 3 bowls, mix a pink icing; a red icing; and a purple icing. Pour all 4 icings into a rectangular dish. Swirl to create desired marbled pattern. Holding a cookie face-down between your thumb and pointer finger, dip the surface of the cookie into the icing, enough to lightly cover the top of the cookie but not spill over the sides. Pull the cookie back up and move your hand up and down to shake off any excess icing. Repeat with remaining cookies. Print