Strawberry Cheesecake Cookies

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!

Ingredients

• 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!

Instructions

Step 1: 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: Wrap the cookie dough in plastic wrap and chill for at least one hour or overnight. 

Step 3: Make the pastry cream and chill for at least two hours or overnight. 

Step 4: Roll out the cookie dough and use a 3" cookie cutter to cut out as many cookies as possible. 

Step 5: Freeze the cutout cookies for 15 minutes, then bake for 12 minutes.

Step 6: Make the cream cheese filling by beating butter, cream cheese, and vanilla into the pastry cream until smooth. Pipe filling onto cooled cookies.

FAQ

Other cookie recipes you'll love

Baking in grams

All of the recipes on this blog are carefully developed to create incredibly delicious baked goods that you can easily recreate in your own kitchen with success. The only way this is possible is to standardize the way ingredients are measured - by weight. 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), I can ensure that you can make the recipe 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

📖 Recipe

Strawberry Cheesecake Cookies

• Author: Sloane
• Prep Time: 2 hours
• Cook Time: 12 minutes
• Total Time: 2 hours 12 minutes
• Yield: 8 sandwich cookies 1x
• Category: cookies
• Method: baking
• Cuisine: American

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Description

These strawberry cheesecake cookies are a foolproof sugar cookie recipe with freeze dried strawberries and cream cheese german buttercream. 

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Ingredients

Scale 1x2x3x

For the strawberry sugar cookies:

• 270g (2 ¼ cup) all-purpose flour
• ¼ tsp baking powder
• ¼ tsp salt
• 170g (¾ cup) unsalted butter (room temp)
• 200g (1 cup) granulated sugar
• 1 egg (room temp)
• 1 tsp vanilla paste or extract
• 8g (⅓ cup) freeze dried strawberries (finely chopped)

For the cheesecake filling:

• 170g (¾ cup) whole milk
• 2 egg yolks
• 100g (½ cup) granulated sugar
• 12g (1 tbsp + 1 tsp) cornstarch
• 170g (¾ cup) unsalted butter (room temp)
• 85g (3 oz) cream cheese (room temp)
• ½ tsp vanilla
• ¼ tsp salt

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Instructions

For the strawberry sugar cookies:

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
2. In a bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, beat the butter and sugar for 1-2 minutes.
3. Next, beat in the egg and vanilla.
4. Scrape down the bowl and add in the dry ingredients. Mix until mostly combined.
5. Gently fold in the freeze dried strawberries until just combined. Do not over mix!
6. Shape the dough into a flat disk, wrap in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least one hour or up to overnight.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. Cut out as many cookies as you can with a 3" cookie cutter.
10. Shape the remaining cookie dough into a disk and refrigerate for a few minutes if has become too warm.
11. Re-roll and continue cutting out until all dough is used up.
12. Place cutout cookie dough on the prepared baking sheets about an inch apart and freeze for at least 15 minutes.
13. Bake the cookies for about 12 minutes until barely golden around the edges.
14. Allow to cool completely before assembling with cheesecake filling.

For the cheesecake filling:

1. Start with the pastry cream – heat the milk in a saucepan, and bring to a simmer or about 200 degrees F.
2. Whisk the egg yolks, sugar, and cornstarch together for 2-3 minutes until light in color.
3. Once the milk is simmering, slowly pour half into the egg-sugar mixture, whisking at the same time to temper the eggs.
4. 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.
5. Once the bubbles disappear, continue whisking for one more minute, then remove from heat.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.
9. Add the cream cheese, vanilla paste, and salt, and beat until fully incorporated.
10. Continue beating on low speed for several minutes until smooth.

For assembly:

1. Transfer filling to a piping bag with a large star piping tip (I used Ateco 868).
2. Pipe the filling onto the bottom cookie and gently press the paired cookie on top.
3. Place the assembled cookies in the fridge for a few minutes so the filling can thicken up. 
4. Top with more freeze dried strawberries and enjoy!

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Notes

• Store these cookies in the fridge for about 3-5 days or freeze for up to 3 months.

Nutrition

• Serving Size: 1 cookie
• Calories: 523
• Sugar: 33 g
• Sodium: 185.9 mg
• Fat: 29.2 g
• Carbohydrates: 60.5 g
• Protein: 6.1 g
• Cholesterol: 120.6 mg

Keywords: strawberry cheesecake cookies, strawberry sugar cookies, german buttercream, freeze dried strawberry cookies