Strawberry Cheesecake Cookies are the ultimate chewy, gooey cream cheese-filled cookies that are bursting in natural strawberry flavor! Besides how amazing they taste, the best thing about these Strawberry cookies is that no special equipment is needed to make them and they come together surprisingly easily following my step-by-step baking guide!

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🌟 Why this is the best recipe
- Perfect chewy texture – The secret behind chewy strawberry cheesecake cookies is 1. resting them before baking 2. right proportion of wet and dry ingredients with just enough fat (butter) 3. not to overbake them
- Irresistible gooey cream cheese center – The cookies are loaded with cream cheese filling! There is a small trick during the preparation to fill them with as much cream cheese as possible. Keep on reading my Baking tips!
- Delicious natural strawberry flavor – I never compromise on taste! The combination of cream cheese and natural strawberry flavors (due to the fresh strawberries added to the cookie batter) in these strawberry cheesecake cookies will blow your mind! This is hands down the most delicious cookie recipe ever!
- Quick & easy to make - Last but not least, it is hard to find a more delicious recipe with so minimal effort. Even if you are a beginner in the kitchen, you can comfortably try this Strawberry Cheesecake cookie recipe
📝 Ingredient notes
- Butter: Use always unsalted as you want to be in control of the quantity of the salt. I am using European-style 82% fat content butter in all my recipes. In this Strawberry cream cheese cookies recipe, the butter needs to be at room temperature so soft enough to be able to cream with the rest of the ingredients
- Sugar: Simply granulated sugar is totally fine for this cookie recipe. If you want to learn about the different types of sugar and how to use them in baking, please read my sugar guide
- Egg: Room temperature as always, 1 egg+1 yolk is enough as we do not want a cake-like texture
- Flour: The best chewy cookies are made using high protein content bread flour however simple all-purpose flour should be also fine in this cream cheese-filled cookies recipe. If you want to be a Pro when it comes to deciding what type of flour to use in your baking, please read my flour guide
- Salt: An essential ingredient in most dessert recipes. Balances flavor and enhances other ingredients, do not leave it out
- Baking soda: Makes the strawberry cookies slightly risen, tender and chewy
- Cream cheese: I prefer to use full-fat Philadephia cream cheese in most of my recipes where Cream cheese is stated. It has a lovely taste and perfect texture for baking, perfect to make this Strawberry Cheesecake cookies recipe
- Powdered sugar: We will use a small amount of powdered/icing sugar for the cream cheese filling part
- Strawberries: Fresh strawberries are used in the cookie batter providing natural strawberry flavors in the cookies. Do not use frozen strawberries as that can make the cookies way too moist/watery. Freeze dried strawberries tend to brown during baking, so in this recipe, I really encourage to use of fresh strawberries only
🛒 You’ll find detailed measurements for all Ingredients in the printable version of the Recipe Card at the bottom of this post
👩🍳 How to make this recipe
1. How to make the cream cheese filling
Start with making the cream cheese cookie filling as it needs to be frozen. Why? Because we want to fill the Strawberry cookies with as much cream cheese as possible and it is impossible to fill the cookie dough unless the filling is frozen.
But don´t worry, the process is super simple;
- Whip cream cheese and powdered sugar for a few minutes
- Pipe or spoon 12 equal-sized balls on a parchment paper or silicone baking mat
- Then, flatten the top so the cream cheese filling looks sort of round but a bit more on the flat side
- Freeze for 30-60 minutes
Freezing might seem like an extra step, but it is the only way to ensure a neat cream cheese filling within the cookie dough balls. Please do not attempt to fill the cookie dough unless the cream cheese is completely frozen.
💡 Top Tip: Be careful with the size of the cream cheese disks. Remember, that you will have to seal the frozen cream cheese filling into the cookie dough so you have to be mindful of that. If you want to make the filling larger, you will have to make the cookie part also bigger.
2. Step-by-step process of making cookie batter
While the filling is in the freezer, making the strawberry cookie dough is extremely easy and quick but there are a couple of key steps you have to get right to achieve the right texture;
- With an Electric hand mixer cream together room temperature (!) butter and sugar for a few minutes (no need to use Stand mixer)
- Mix in the egg, just until combined
- Sift the dry ingredients; flour, salt, and baking soda together. Sifting is necessary to avoid lumps later
- Fold the flour mixture in with the help of a Rubber spatula just until combined. Make sure you fold it only until the mixture comes together, literally 30 seconds. Do not use a mixer and do not over mix the cookie butter. Over mixing ingredients would result in incorporating too much air and gluten into the mixture in which case the strawberry cheesecake cookies might get a crumbly, cake-like texture and we do not want that!
- Finally, fold in chopped strawberries. Leave some strawberries to place on top of the cookies at a later stage. Tip: Once you chop the strawberries, it is worth soaking them with a paper towel so they won´t make the cookie dough too wet
💡 Top Tip: Chill the dough for about 30 minutes to be able to handle it better at the assembling process so it won+t stick to your hand
3. Assemble the cream cheese-filled cookies
Once the cream cheese filling is frozen and the strawberry cookie dough is rested, it is time to assemble our cookies;
- Line 2 trays with parchment paper or baking sheet and with the help of a Digital scale divide the cookie batter into 24 equal portions
- Take one cookie dough portion, place it onto the parchment paper and gently flatten the top. The diameter of the cookie dough should be bigger, than the diameter of the frozen cream cheese filling
- Now, take one frozen cream cheese filling and place it on top of the cookie dough, and sort of press it into the cookie dough gently
- Take another cookie dough portion and gently but firmly seal the frozen cream cheese filling with the bottom cookie dough
- Continue with the rest of the cookies, you will make 12 altogether
You might need some practice but once you assemble a few, it will go super quick. The key is to seal the cream cheese filling into the cookie dough balls neatly without making the dough too warm with your fingers. In this way, the strawberry cheesecake cookies will have the best texture with a soft filling inside and around that lovely cookie dough.
💡 Top Tip: Make sure the cream chees filling is fully frozen, only take 1 out of the freezer at once
4. Why chill the Strawberry cream cheese cookies before baking
After assembling the strawberry cheesecake cookies, just like when baking any other cookies, you will want to chill the dough. The main reason behind cookie chilling is to avoid over-spread, sad-looking, flat cookies.
You might come across "no chill cookie dough" on the Internet, I can almost guarantee that the dry vs wet ingredients are unbalanced in any "no chill cookie" meaning when they are baked, they will be dry. The warmer the dough, the easier it will spread in the oven and our aim is to achieve thick, fudge Strawberry cookies.
💡 Top Tip: Either 1 hour in the fridge or 20 minutes in the freezer is sufficient enough to chill the dough
5. How to bake
First of all, never bake any dessert without properly pre-heating your oven first, so start with that. The cookies will be baked at 175 C / 347°F so preheat the oven +20C / 68F as the oven temp drops when you open the door. Always use Digital oven thermometer to avoid over-baked crumbly or under-baked cookies.
The recipe will make 12 large bakery-style cookies, I recommend baking 6 at once in a tray.
I bake these cookies in the following way: 15 minutes at 175 C / 347°F (no fan). After 15 minutes cookies should already be somewhat spread and that is when I place even more strawberries on top. It is also a perfect moment to slightly shape the cookies and make them perfectly round, see tips further below in the next section. After, I bake them for another 10-15 minutes at again 175 C / 347°F.
These Strawberry cheesecake cookies require a longer baking time than your usual chocolate chip cookie because of the filling, and because of the fresh strawberries in the dough, however, please note, that each oven is different so you might need to adjust the times slightly.
The cookies are ready when the edge looks sort of baked and the middle slightly gooey but not raw.
These strawberry cheesecake cookies are best eaten fresh or within the same day.
💡 Top Tip: Do not overbake your cookies! They should be slightly gooey straight out of the oven, then they will further set as they cool.
6. How to achieve perfectly round cookies
Apply the circular trick:
After the tray banging, grab a large cookie cutter or any round shape thing in your kitchen (slightly larger than the size of the cookies in the oven). Hold the cookie cutter and make circular movements around the almost baked cookies which will slightly tighten the cookies, make them perfectly round shape and the movement also encourages crinkle forming on top. Incredible easy trick and works like charm!
🎓 Expert tips
- Always work with a cookie dough that is cold enough to be able to handle so it does not stick, but not too cold and firm so you can comfortably seal the two parts around the cream cheese filling). If needed, pop the dough back into the fridge for a few minutes, then continue
- Freezing the cream cheese filling is a must, do not try to skip it
- Feel free to use brown sugar, instead of granulated sugar for an even more complex flavor profile (although color will be darker)
- Strawberries can easily be substituted in this recipe with other berries, eg. blueberries or raspberries
- I get the best results when baking these strawberry cheesecake fcookies on parchment paper or a perforated baking mat. I find they might get wet from the bottom if baking on silicone mat
- Avoid over-baking your cookies as that would result in a crumbly texture
- You can easily dust the cookies with almond flake for extra crunchiness and flavor
❓Recipe FAQs
Yes, most probably you can, however, you can´t just replace flour with gluten-free flour 1:1 or leave out the egg without reformulating the recipe. When one ingredient changes, some other ingredients need to be changed too in order to keep the balance in the texture and flavor. Sadly, I am not able to provide substitutes for all sorts of allergies and diets
I have not tested but the recipe should work with other fillings that have similar texture qualities eg. a thicker strawberry jam, Nutella, etc.
These cookies are the best eaten fresh out of the oven, however, you can store them for 1-2 days refrigerated
You can easily freeze the cookies either before or after baking
🍪 More cookie recipes
Make sure to also check out my Spring Desserts recipe collection!
Easy Strawberry Cheesecake cookies (VIDEO)
Equipment
- Digital scale
Ingredients
Strawberry cookies
- 220 g (1 cups) Unsalted butter room temp.
- 210 g (1 cups) Granulated sugar
- 1 Egg room temp.
- 1 Egg yolk room temp.
- 330 g (2½ cups) All purpose
- ¾ Teaspoon Salt
- 1½ Teaspoon Baking soda
- 140 g (1 cups) Fresh Strawberry chopped into small pieces
Cream cheese filling
- 180 g (¾ cups) Cream cheese eg. Full fat Philadephia
- 30 g (¼ cups) Powdered sugar sifted
Decoration
- freeze dried strawberries optional
US customary cup measurement is an indicative figure only. Measure the ingredients with a digital scale by weight (gram). Baking is art but also science which requires precision and accuracy.
Instructions
Start with the cream cheese filling
- Whip cream cheese with powdered sugar for a few minutes, then pipe or spoon 12 equal-sized balls on a parchment paper or silicone baking mat
- Gently flatten the top of the balls so the cream cheese filling looks sort of round but a bit more on the flat side. Freeze for 30-60 minutes
Continue with the cookie dough
- Mix in the egg, just until combined
- Sift flour, salt, and baking soda together then add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients and fold with the help of a Rubber spatula just until combined. Do not overmix
- Cut strawberry into small pieces and gently soak the access moist out of them with a paper towel so they won´t make the cookie dough too wet
- Fold in strawberry pieces just until combined, do not mash the strawverry pieces into the dough. Leave some strawberry for later so you can place more on top of the half baked cookies
- Prepare 2 baking pans with parchment
- Divide the dough into 24 equal balls (using a Digital scale is handy)
- Take one cookie dough portion, place it onto the parchment paper and gently flatten the top. The diameter of the cookie dough should be bigger, than the diameter of the frozen cream cheese filling
- Take one frozen cream cheese filling and place it on top of the cookie dough. Take another cookie dough portion and gently but firmly seal the frozen cream cheese filling with the bottom cookie dough
- Continue with the rest, overall you will have 12 cream cheese filled cookies
- Let cookie dough rest in the fridge for an hour or 20 minutes in the freezer
Baking
- Pre-heat oven to 175 C / 347°F
- Bake the cookies for 25-30 minutes in the following way: Bake for 15 minutes then place some more strawberries on top, then bake them for further 10-15 minutes.
- Apply the circular trick with the cookie cutter, if desired. See tips above
- Let the cookies rest for a few minutes, then carefully remove them from the parchment paper and let them cool on a Cooling rack. The Cookies will further set as they cool. Sprinkle them with freeze dried strawberries (optional)
- Serve them while they are slightly warm
- Store refrigerated for 1-2 days
Notes
- Measure your ingredients with a Digital scale for accuracy
- Use 82% European style unsalted butter when making cookies
- Bread flour makes the cookies extra chewy, feel free to substitute it with all purpose flour
- Do not use frozen strawberry in this recipe as it would make the cookies too moist/wet
- Make sure you read my Expert tips section above to maximize your success. A short recipe alone is not able to cover all the necessary details, and science behind baking.
- Respect the chilling and freezing time in the recipe, do not skip it or you won't be able to fill the cookie dough with the cream cheese filling
- Do not add more strawberries to the cookie dough as it might make it too wet
- Try not to overbake your cookies if you prefer them fudge and gooey
Katie
Hi Kata,
Can this cookie dough/creamcheese filling be pre-assembled and freezed for a couple of days before bake? Thanks.
Kata
Absolutely!
Hanga
Seriously the most amazing cookies with strong strawberry flavor, so delicious!
Alyssa
Freeze dried strawberries should be added to the ingredient list. Took me awhile to find where it is mentioned in the recipe, but I noticed it in the photo.
Kata
It is just decoration and totally not mandatory, but thanks for the tip, I will add this now to the recipe card:)
Angel
how many grams did you split the cookie dough for 12 equal balls?
Thanks, looking forward in making another cookie recipe of yours!
Kata
Well, it is basically all the ingredients of the cookie dough divided by 12 but ofc there can be differences here and there so the best to measure your dough when it is assembled and divide that by 12:)