These strawberry cheesecake cookies are a foolproof sugar cookie recipe with freeze dried strawberries and cream cheese german buttercream.
These strawberry cheesecake cookies are made from soft cutout sugar cookies baked with freeze dried strawberries and sandwiched with a silky cream cheese german buttercream. The buttercream is made with a pastry cream base, and when cream cheese is added it becomes this light custard-like cheesecake filling. Top the cookies with more freeze dried strawberries and enjoy!
For more cookie recipes, try Roasted Strawberry Cinnamon Rolls, Strawberry Peach Cobbler, Gluten Free Strawberry Shortcake Cake, and No Churn Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream.
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Ingredient Notes
- All-Purpose Flour: You'll need exactly 2 ¼ cups of all-purpose flour, but I strongly recommend weighing your flour to 270g with a scale. Trust me, it's worth it. Without a scale, you run the risk of adding too much flour, which leads to dry crumbly cookies, or you'll add too little flour and your cookies will spread too much.
- Leavener: I like to add ¼ teaspoon of baking powder to make them even softer, but they bake up just fine without it!
- Unsalted Butter: Since there are very few ingredients in sugar cookies, most of the flavor comes from the butter, which is why it is so so important to use high-quality unsalted butter.
- Sugar: You'll need one whole cup of granulated sugar for the cookie dough and ½ cup for the filling.
- Egg: You'll need just one egg for the dough and 2 egg yolks for the filling.
- Freeze Dried Strawberries: Add about a ⅓ cup of finely chopped freeze dried strawberries to the cookie dough.
- Cornstarch: Cornstarch helps to thicken the pastry cream to the perfect consistency.
- Milk: I recommend using whole milk for optimum flavor.
- Cream Cheese: Be sure to use room temperature block cream cheese for the filling!
See recipe card for full information on ingredients and individual quantities.
Step by Step Instructions
Here are step by step photos and instructions on how to make this strawberry cheesecake cookie recipe! For the full ingredient list and method, see the recipe card at the end of this post.
STEP 1: Make the dough. Make the cookie dough by creaming the butter and sugar together, mixing in the egg and vanilla, and finally folding in the dry ingredients and freeze dried strawberries.
STEP 2: Chill. Wrap the cookie dough in plastic wrap and chill for at least one hour or overnight.
STEP 3: Make the cream. Make the pastry cream and chill for at least two hours or overnight.
STEP 4: Roll and cut. Roll out the cookie dough and use a 3" cookie cutter to cut out as many cookies as possible.
STEP 5: Freeze and bake. Freeze the cutout cookies for 15 minutes, then bake for 12 minutes.
STEP 6: Make the filling. Make the cream cheese filling by beating butter, cream cheese, and vanilla into the pastry cream until smooth. Pipe filling onto cooled cookies.
Expert Baking Tips
- Store these cookies in the fridge for about 3-5 days or freeze for up to 3 months.
Recipe FAQs
Be sure to chill the dough for at least an hour to give it time to rest and firm up into a dough that can be rolled out. I recommend flouring two pieces of parchment paper and rolling out a small amount of the dough between the paper. This will ensure that the dough doesn't stick to the counter or the rolling pin. Plus, it's much easier to clean up!
This largely depends on the butter to flour ratio in the recipe (I assure you that it's right in this recipe😉).
But here is my #1 rule when baking any type of cutout cookie:
Once dough is cut out, place each of them in the freezer for at least 15 minutes before baking. They'll come out perfect every time!
German buttercream is made from a pastry cream base with butter beat into it. In this version, both butter and cream cheese are added, making it taste very similar to a rich cheesecake filling! If you'd like more tips and step by step photos on how to make pastry cream, read this Master Pastry Cream Filling Recipe.
- Electric mixer: A stand mixer or a hand-held electric mixer is needed to properly cream the butter and sugar together.
- Parchment paper: To avoid the cookies sticking, line each baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Kitchen scale: You'll need a kitchen scale to weigh all of your ingredients (read why below)!
Baking in Grams
All of the recipes on this blog are carefully developed with gram measurements so you can easily recreate them in your own kitchen with success. Volume measurements are extremely inaccurate and leave room for significant errors. Not all measuring cups are made equally, so your one cup of flour will be different from my one cup of flour. By providing precise measurements in grams (aside from minor ingredients, which are given in tsp/tbsp), you can make these recipes accurately and with less cleanup! All you need is this kitchen scale.
If this still isn't enough to convince you, I have provided volume measurements in the recipe card. If you are interested in understanding the conversions, this is the best conversion chart.
But trust me, once you try baking in grams you'll never turn back!
Happy baking! x
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📖 Recipe
Strawberry Cheesecake Cookies
Ingredients
For the strawberry sugar cookies:
- 270 g (2 ¼ cups) all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 170 g (¾ cups) unsalted butter, room temp
- 200 g (1 cup) granulated sugar
- 1 egg, room temp
- 1 teaspoon vanilla paste or extract
- 8 g (⅓ cup) freeze dried strawberries, finely chopped
For the cheesecake filling:
- 170 g (¾ cup) whole milk
- 2 egg yolks
- 100 g (½ cup) granulated sugar
- 12 g (1 tbsp + 1 tsp) cornstarch
- 170 g (¾ cup) unsalted butter, room temp
- 85 g (3 oz) cream cheese, room temp
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Instructions
For the strawberry sugar cookies:
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In a bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar for 1-2 minutes.
- Next, beat in the egg and vanilla.
- Scrape down the bowl and add in the dry ingredients. Mix until mostly combined.
- Gently fold in the freeze dried strawberries until just combined. Do not over mix!
- Shape the dough into a flat disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least one hour or up to overnight.
- When ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C) and line a couple baking sheets with parchment paper.
- On a lightly floured surface (or between two floured pieces of parchment paper), roll out ⅓ of the cookie dough to about ¼" thick. Keep the rest of the cookie dough in the fridge.
- Cut out as many cookies as you can with a 3" cookie cutter.
- Shape the remaining cookie dough into a disk and refrigerate for a few minutes if has become too warm.
- Re-roll and continue cutting out until all dough is used up.
- Place cutout cookie dough on the prepared baking sheets about an inch apart and freeze for at least 15 minutes.
- Bake the cookies for about 12 minutes until barely golden around the edges.
- Allow to cool completely before assembling with cheesecake filling.
For the cheesecake filling:
- Start with the pastry cream – heat the milk in a saucepan, and bring to a simmer or about 200 degrees F.
- Whisk the egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch together for 2-3 minutes until light in color.
- Once the milk is simmering, slowly pour half into the egg-sugar mixture, whisking at the same time to temper the eggs.
- Pour everything back into the saucepan and heat over medium heat, whisking constantly. After a couple minutes, a layer of bubbles will form over the top and it will begin to thicken.
- Once the bubbles disappear, continue whisking for one more minute, then remove from heat.
- Transfer to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, pressing it directly up against the pastry cream to prevent a skin from forming. Chill for at least two hours or overnight. Alternatively, you could place the bowl of pastry cream over a water bath and whisk constantly until it cools down to 70 degrees F – you can immediately turn it into buttercream at this point.
- If the pastry cream was chilled overnight, mix the pastry cream for about 10 minutes on low speed until it warms up to about 70 degrees.
- Add the butter, a few cubes at a time, and beat on medium speed. If it looks curdled at all, continue beating on low speed until smooth.
- Add the cream cheese, vanilla paste, and salt, and beat until fully incorporated.
- Continue beating on low speed for several minutes until smooth.
For assembly:
- Transfer filling to a piping bag with a large star piping tip (I used Ateco 868).
- Pipe the filling onto the bottom cookie and gently press the paired cookie on top.
- Place the assembled cookies in the fridge for a few minutes so the filling can thicken up.
- Top with more freeze dried strawberries and enjoy!
Notes
- Store these cookies in the fridge for about 3-5 days or freeze for up to 3 months.
Maria says
Ok, sorry
I do get it now.
Geeze Louise! LOL!
I apologize. Took me a hot minute. (face palm)
MARIA says
reading through recipe.
cream filling is very confusing. after you heat the milk and add eggs/sugar...do you chill that for 2 hours...then go back and beat in cream cheese and butter then chill again???
Sloane says
Hi Maria,
The instructions say to chill the pastry cream for at least 2 hours or overnight. It does not say to chill the filling after the butter and cream cheese are added. Chilling the finished buttercream and then piping it may make it look grainy, as mixing/piping cold buttercream causes the fat solids to separate. I do recommend chilling the assembled cookies in the fridge before serving so the filling does not squish out the sides when you take a bite!
Maria says
Once bubbles disappear, continue whisking one more minute then remove from heat. Transfer to a bowl and cover with plastic wrap, chill for at least 2 hours or overnight.
IF the pastry cream was chilled over night, mix the pastry cream for about 10 minutes . Add the butter, a few cubes at a time
Add the cream cheese, vanilla...etc.
This is where I'm confused. So after it thickens and remove from heat, do I then add in the butter and cream cheese and then cool? Sorry to be so dense LOL
Thank you
Mary Dudley says
instead of putting chunks of freeze dried strawberries, can I just put freeze dried strawberry powder in at the same time as dry ingredients?
Sloane says
Yes, absolutely!