These strawberry cheesecake cookies are really tasty, soft and perfect for any occasion. The recipe is very simple and the result is truly perfect. Lightly golden on the outside, soft at the centre, with a delicious strawberry flavour, and that wonderful creamy cheese filling.

How to make strawberry cheesecake cookies

Making these strawberry cheesecake cookies was a real treat. I was scared that there were going to be unexpected hurdles when shaping or baking, but it was actually easy. For the filling of the strawberry cheesecake cookies, you just need cream cheese and icing sugar. Then, you portion this mix and freeze it for two hours. This makes it a lot easier to fill. The cookie dough for these is like any other cookie recipe only that the dough on these is slightly stiffer to make them easier to fill and bake, preventing them from spreading too much. To portion the base and top of the cookie, I use a 4cm/1.5in diameter cookie scoop. You can find it on my Amazon Storefront.

At the front you can see a cookie cut in half. Both halves are stacked on top of one another. You can see the cream cheese filling at the centre, and the soft cookie around has bits of strawberries.

Strawberry flavour

These strawberry cheesecake cookies really taste incredible. The dough around has chopped strawberries which are incorporated into the cookie dough. When you bite into the cookie, these flavours complement each other perfectly and the mix is really perfect. The centre is not that sweet so it balances out the flavour profile in the cookies. If you prefer, you can swap the chopped strawberries for finely chopped chocolate. It can be white chocolate, milk chocolate or dark chocolate depending on your preference.

Ingredients that make a difference

These strawberry cheesecake cookies have a few ingredients that make a difference when you make them and taste them. Here are a few of them:

Strawberries: Natural strawberries bring the strawberry flavour to these cookies. They are chopped and incorporated into the dough. I really do not recommend that you use frozen strawberries, they go really mushy when you cut them and wet the dough too much.
Cream cheese: The cream cheese for the filling brings the “cream cheese” to these strawberry cheesecake cookies. If using another type of cream cheese other than the full-fat dairy version, be mindful that the change in the formula could affect the result.
Sugar: For this recipe, I use a mix of granulated sugar and brown sugar. Brown sugar adds a bit of caramel flavour and the granulated sugar adds plain sweetness. We don’t want too much of that caramel flavour in these because it goes against the cheesecake profile, but a bit reminds us that it’s a cookie.
Butter: The butter adds softness to the cookies but also that amazing flavour. Swapping for other solid fats will change the flavour and could affect how much they spread in the oven. Let me know if anything else works for you!

Top view of a whole strawberry cheesecake cookie. You can see the bits of strawberry in the dough.

How to bake strawberry cheesecake cookies

To bake the cookies, we place them on a baking tray lined with baking paper or a silicone mat. They’re baked for 15-18 minutes or until they’re lightly golden around the edge. This is enough time to have them nice and soft. As soon as these strawberry cheesecake cookies come out of the oven, you can use a round cookie cutter to re-shape them into a rounder shape. To do that, surround them with the cutter and swirl them in there. This is an optional step but helps with getting them perfectly circular. Wait a few minutes before lifting them from the tray because they will be very soft.

Front view of a whole strawberry cheesecake cookie at the bottom, with half a cookie on top of it, showing the cream cheese centre.

How to store and freeze the cookies

These strawberry cheesecake cookies keep really well for 5 days in an air-tight container at room temperature. Both the cookie and the filling keep really well and the texture stays intact. If you like, you can freeze these cookies before baking them, already in balls. They go straight into the oven from frozen, baking for a bit longer to compensate for the cold. Don’t let them thaw before baking or the strawberries will leak their moisture into the dough.