Valentine Gnome Cookie Cups
on Jan 19, 2022, Updated Feb 13, 2024
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These Valentine Gnomes cookies will steal your heart! Made with chocolate dipped strawberries, sugar cookie cups and delicious vanilla frosting, these little guys are almost too sweet to eat.
Almost. But not quite.
Not only are they incredibly simple to make, they taste good too! I love cookie cups because they look like mini cupcakes but are small enough to eat in two or three bites. You can also make them with mini muffins in a pinch!
Add them to a Valentine’s Day snack board with some brownie bites and these cute conversation heart rice krispie treats and you’ve got yourself a party!
Valentine’s Day Gnome Cookie Shopping List
Easy holiday treats are as fun to make as they are to eat. Let your kids help you with these and make a day of it!
You will need a few ingredients and a mini muffin tin. Or if you want to skip the baking, mini muffins should work just fine.
The best part about our gnome cookies, is the strawberry hat. And this time, we are dipping them in chocolate!
What to Buy
- Refrigerated sugar cookie dough (Pillsbury break apart cookies are my favorite) OR Mini Muffins
- White Icing (grab one that comes in a tube and save the step of using a pastry bag) OR make your own
- Fresh Strawberries
- Pink candies (use whatever you can find – I chose M&Ms)
- Mini cupcake liners
- Pink melting chocolate
- Valentine‘s Day sprinkles
Prepare Cookies or Mini Muffins
I have made my gnomes with both mini muffins and sugar cookies and the cookies are by far my preferred method.
The reasoning is a cookie is more substantial and stands up to the weight of the strawberries.
For my Valentine Gnomes, I went with mini muffins. A word of caution if you do this; you’ll want to get small to medium size strawberries.
That said, here is the cookie method.
Preheat oven to 350°F and line the mini muffin pan cups with cupcake liners. We’re going to peel these off later so don’t worry about it if they don’t match.
Note: You can skip the liners and coat with cooking oil spray if you want to, but some people have had trouble with that method. It’s important to be sure the pan is very well coated because these cookies like to stick.
Place one cookie piece into each muffin cup. You don’t need to flatten or roll them. Just drop them in, easy peasy!
Bake cookies and place pan on a wire rack to cool.
Then while they are still warm, take a small scoop to gently press the cookies into a cup shape. Then cool completely before removing from the pan.
Dip the Strawberries
I decided to add some melted chocolate into the mix this time for a variety of colors. You can dip all or only some of the strawberries. It’s up to you.
While the cookies are baking, wash and dry strawberries and slice off the tops so you have a straight edge on the large side of your strawberry.
Add the pink melting chocolate to a bowl and microwave with a little bit of Crisco until smooth. You will melt in 30 second intervals, stirring between each interval until smooth.
Then, push a fork into the large side of a strawberry and turn it over and dip into the pink melted chocolate.
Allow excess to drip back into the bowl and transfer strawberry to a wax paper lined platter to dry.
To do this, gently slide the large side of the strawberry off the fork and allow to dry so it looks like the hat is right side up. Repeat for each strawberry in each color you decide to use.
TIP: It’s ok if the melting chocolate doesn’t go all the way to the bottom. It won’t show in the final product.
Before the chocolate hardens completely, place a few heart sprinkles on the front of the hat.
Create your Valentine Gnomes
Remove your cooled cookie cups from the pan. If you used liners, you can peel them off. If you are using muffins, unwrap and place them on your work surface.
Pipe a generous amount of frosting onto each cookie cup or mini muffin.
Then push a strawberry on top of the icing and add a pink candy nose just in front of the strawberry.
Take a toothpick and spread some of the icing downward to create the white beard. That’s it!
You will fall in love these little guys. I had a blast making my gnome cookies for Christmas and you can bet it’s going to get even more fun with each holiday.
Print the Recipe
Give these adorable Valentine’s Day gnomes as a gift along with a fun printable Valentine or make them with friends for Galentine’s Day!
Valentine’s Day Gnomes
Ingredients
- 1 pkg Refrigerated Sugar Cookie Dough, I used the break apart kind OR Mini Muffins
- 24 oz White Frosting, about 2-3 tubes of prepared frosting
- 24 Strawberries
- 24 Valentine’s Day M&Ms
Instructions
Cookie Cups
- Preheat oven to 350°F and spray a mini muffin pan with cooking oil spray. You can also use mini cupcake liners if you have them (preferred method).
- Place one cookie piece into each muffin cup. You don't need to flatten or roll them.
- Bake cookies for 20 minutes and place pan on a wire rack to cool.
- While the cookies are still warm, take a small scoop to gently press the cookies into a cup shape.
- Cool completely before removing from the pan.
Decorate the Gnomes
- Wash and dry strawberries and slice off the tops of strawberries so you have a straight edge on the large side of your strawberry.
- Add pink melting chocolate to a bowl and microwave with a little bit of Crisco until smooth. Heat in 30 second intervals, stirring between each interval until smooth.
- Push a fork into the large side of a strawberry, then turn it over and dip into the pink melted chocolate. NOTE: You can also leave some of the strawberries un-dipped and use some of the chocolate to add a sprinkle.
- Allow excess to drip back into the bowl and transfer strawberry to a wax paper lined platter to dry. To do this, gently slide the large side of the strawberry off the fork and allow to dry so it looks like the hat is right side up. Repeat for each strawberry.
- Before the chocolate sets completely, add some Valentine's Day sprinkles.
- Pipe the white frosting onto your cooled cookie cups or mini muffins.
- Then push a strawberry on top of the icing and add a candy nose just under the strawberry. We used red and pink M&Ms for these.
- Take a toothpick to spread some of the icing down to create the white beard.
- Enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
