Soft-baked with crisp edges, loaded with chewy dried strawberries and creamy white chocolate, these strawberries & cream cookies deliver a summery-sweet taste any time of year.
One reader, Sheila, commented: “OMG! I don’t know what else to say. They are soft, chewy, and the strawberry flavor from the freeze dried strawberries is fantastic. Thank you once again, Sally, for another great recipe. ★★★★★“
Have you ever tried my strawberry biscuit cookies? Buttery, tender, and flaky, the cookies come together like an actual biscuit dough filled with fresh berries. They’re adorable, sweet, and topped with icing.
But they don’t have that chewy-dense texture we all know and love about, say, chocolate chip cookies. That’s because throwing fresh strawberries into cookie dough creates an overly wet cookie dough… aka a cookie paste. I love the strawberry biscuit cookies, but I never really gave up on my strawberry cookie quest.
Enter freeze-dried strawberries, the magical form of berry goodness that makes strawberry buttercream possible. Give the freeze-dried fruit a rough chop and throw them into cookie dough along with white chocolate chunks and cream cheese. This is a recipe for dessert utopia.
Why You’ll Adore These Strawberries & Cream Cookies
- Cream cheese in the dough makes for soft and creamy-tasting cookies
- The freeze-dried strawberries rehydrate in the dough, so the bits of berry are deliciously chewy (not airy and light)
- Perfectly sweet with gooey pools of melted white chocolate
- Thick and soft-baked center, with crispy edges
- Combination of white chocolate and strawberry is so yummy—just like in these white chocolate strawberry cupcakes
- Enjoy sweet strawberries & cream any time of year!
We’ll use the same cookie dough base as these cookies & cream cookies, though I slightly reduce the butter here as I found the strawberries increased spread. Using a combination of butter and cream cheese, the cookies are extra soft and uniquely creamy-tasting. So satisfying.x
A Few Key Ingredients You Need
- Cornstarch: I love adding a touch of cornstarch because it helps create a thicker, softer cookie. If you don’t have it, just leave it out.
- Baking Soda: Helps the cookies puff up and then fall to their crinkly, chewy destiny.
- Cream Cheese: Cream cheese makes the dough extra soft and creamy, which I love in so many cookie recipes, like maple walnut tassies and cream cheese sugar cookies.
- White Chocolate: Chopped white chocolate melts into gooey little puddles of sweet creaminess. The pieces on the bottom of the cookies take on a delicious caramelized flavor, too. You can also use white chocolate chips instead, or semi-sweet, milk chocolate, or dark chocolate chips if you prefer.
- Freeze-Dried Strawberries: While these start with a light-as-air dry and crispy texture, the strawberries actually rehydrate in the dough, so they end up delightfully chewy in the baked cookies. (I don’t particularly love the texture of freeze-dried strawberries, but after baking in a wet dough, the texture totally transforms.)
Cream the Butter & Cream Cheese Together First
Creamed room-temperature butter and sugar is the base of many cookie recipes. But before we add the sugar, it’s imperative to properly cream the cream cheese and butter together. The two are different textures—cream cheese is much softer than butter. My tip is to beat the cream cheese in your mixer until very soft and smooth, with no lumps. Then add the softened butter and beat together until combined. This is your creamy base for these strawberries & cream cookies.
Freeze-Dried Strawberries Success Tips
- Where to buy freeze-dried strawberries? I find freeze-dried strawberries in my regular grocery store in the dried fruit aisle. They’re becoming quite common. Trader Joe’s, Amazon, and Target all carry them, as well.
- Mix them into the dough last. Beat in the white chocolate chunks first, and then add in the strawberry pieces on your mixer’s lowest speed, just briefly to incorporate, without letting the mixer crush the berries too much (or you’ll end up with pinkish-taupe cookies). Use the pieces of strawberries, not all the strawberry dust that’s created when you chop the freeze-dried berries. Save that for making the frosting for a strawberry cake!
Expect a thick and sticky dough. Make sure you take the time to chill it in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours, otherwise your cookies will spread into shapeless puddles in the oven. The dough stiffens up quite nicely after 2 hours in the refrigerator:
Tips for Shaping Your Cookies
After chilling, scoop the dough (heaping 1.5 Tablespoons/35g in size, I use this medium cookie scoop) and roll into balls. Actually, you want to form them into tall columns (LOL) to help ensure nice thick cookies, like you see me do when making chewy chocolate chip cookies.
These are thick, lumpy-bumpy cookies. Don’t expect them to come out looking uniform, thanks to the chunky pieces of chopped berries and white chocolate, but that’s part of their charm! Check on the cookies about halfway through baking and:
- If they’re not spreading much, take the baking sheet out of the oven and bang it on your counter a couple times, to initiate the spread. The longer you chill the dough, the less the cookies will spread, so if you chill the dough for longer than 2 hours, let it sit at room temperature for about 30 minutes before forming into cookies and baking.
- If your cookies are over-spreading or looking really uneven in shape or size, use a spoon to gently press in around the edges to reshape, then return the pans to the oven to finish baking.
I also like to press a few more white chocolate chunks into the tops of the strawberries & cream cookies when they’re still warm, but it’s only for looks. And if you have extra white chocolate, feel free to melt it and drizzle over the cooled cookies.
If you need more cookie inspiration, today’s cookies join 25+ others on my Summer Cookie Recipes collection page. I also included this recipe over on my Valentine’s Day dessert recipes page, but they’re just as tasty any time of the year 🙂 Let’s eat!
Print
Strawberries & Cream Cookies
- Prep Time: 2 hours, 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 13 minutes
- Total Time: 2 hours, 35 minutes
- Yield: 28–30 cookies
- Category: Cookies
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Using a combination of butter and cream cheese, these strawberry-speckled white chocolate cookies are extra soft and uniquely creamy-tasting. Chill the dough for at least 2 hours before baking.
Ingredients
- 2 and 1/4 cups (281g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 4 ounces (113g) full-fat brick cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- 10 Tablespoons (142g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup (100g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 6 ounces (170g) white chocolate, to yield 1 cup white chocolate chunks
- 1 and 1/2 cups (45g) roughly chopped freeze-dried strawberries
Instructions
- Whisk the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt together in a medium bowl. Set aside.
- In a large bowl using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese on medium-high speed until completely smooth and creamy. Add the butter and beat until combined, scraping down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl as needed. Add granulated sugar and brown sugar and beat on medium-high speed until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add the egg and vanilla and beat on high speed until combined, about 1 minute. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl and beat again as needed to combine.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on low speed until combined. With the mixer running on low speed, beat in the white chocolate chunks. Add the freeze-dried strawberries and beat on low speed briefly, until just combined.
- Cover and chill the dough for at least 2 hours in the refrigerator (and up to 4 days). If chilling for longer than a few hours, allow to sit at room temperature for at least 30 minutes before rolling and baking because the dough will be quite hard.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). Line baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Set aside.
- Roll cookie dough, a heaping 1.5 Tablespoons of dough per cookie (I use this medium-size cookie scoop), and place 3 inches apart on the baking sheets. Bake for 13–15 minutes or until lightly browned on the sides. The centers will look very soft.
- Remove from the oven and allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. While the cookies are still warm, I like to press a few more white chocolate chunks into the tops, just for looks.
- Cookies stay fresh covered at room temperature for up to 1 week.
Notes
- Make Ahead & Freezing Instructions: You can make the cookie dough and chill it in the refrigerator for up to 4 days. Allow to come to room temperature then continue with step 5. Baked cookies freeze well for up to 3 months. Unbaked cookie dough balls freeze well for up to 3 months. Bake frozen cookie dough balls for an extra minute, no need to thaw. Here’s how to freeze cookie dough.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Baking Sheets | Silicone Baking Mats or Parchment Sheets | Medium Cookie Scoop | Cooling Rack
- Cornstarch: I love adding a little cornstarch to some cookie recipes because it helps keep the cookies extra soft. You can leave it out if you don’t have any with no other changes to the recipe needed. (The cookies are still pretty soft without it!)
- Cream Cheese: You need 4 ounces of cream cheese for this recipe, so use half of an 8 ounce brick of full-fat cream cheese. Do not use cream cheese spread or whipped cream cheese. If using low-fat or fat-free, keep in mind that the texture of the cookies will be different. They won’t be as rich or chewy and could spread more. I recommend full-fat.
- Freeze-Dried Strawberries: This cookie recipe only works with freeze dried strawberries (or try freeze-dried raspberries or blueberries). Do not use fresh or frozen strawberries. If you want to use those, try these strawberry biscuit cookies instead. I always find freeze-dried strawberries in my regular grocery store in the aisle with the dried fruit. Target, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe’s carry them, too. Or you can purchase them online.
- White Chocolate: I typically use the Baker’s or Ghirardelli brand white chocolate baking bars, which come in 4-ounce (113g) bars, so I chopped up 1 and 1/2 bars for these cookies. Feel free to use 1 cup white chocolate chips or semi-sweet chocolate chips instead.
- Be sure to check out my top 5 cookie baking tips AND these are my 10 must-have cookie baking tools.
This is a good cookie but has a subtle strawberry flavor which was only coming from the strawberries. My freeze-dried strawberries were very tart so I added strawberry extract and chopped strawberry wafer chocolate vice white ones. I would still bake these when the craving calls for it. Thank you for sharing your recipe!
Made this recipe using the weights rather than the measures as I usually find that to be easier and more precise. However, this recipe came out a gloppy mess using the weights listed. After I made two batches of cookie soup I went back and weighed 2 1/4c of flour which came to 360g in my scale, not 281. Perhaps it was made on the moon?
Waste of my time and ingredients.
Hi Matt, 1 cup of spooned and leveled all-purpose flour weighs 120-125g. I usually scale up to 125g per 1 cup. I wonder if the butter was overly soft? It should be a cool room temperature. Sorry you had trouble with this, but thanks for the feedback.
Made these for work. Made the dough and rolled them out 2 days ago. Baked them this morning. I love these cookies! Love the texture and strawberry flavor. I will be making these often, on some of them i did add a half of a freeze dried strawberry before going into the oven. Wont do that again. Parts looked burnt but taste fine. White chocolate and strawberries were very well balanced. Thanks Sally
This recipe did not work at all. I am an experienced baker and prepared the recipe exactly as written. Like some other comments indicate, the cookies didn’t speak the way they should, staying more biscuit-like than cookie. I also found the flavor lacking, bland with occasional hints of strawberry. I don’t think that the white chocolate added anything. I usually love the recipes from this site. This is definitely an anomaly.
I did get good reviews on these cookies, except the strawberry flavor did not come through for a majority of the people. Also, I prefer a cookie that has crisp edges and soft center. Any suggestions. I also always scoop my cookies onto a parchment lined 1/2 sheet tray then cover in plastic and allow to sit overnight or for up to 3 days. It usually helps intensify the flavor, but not this time. I use a #30 scoop and get 30 cookies.
Hi Zazzi, these cookies should have crisp edges and chewy centers—was the texture more cakey for you? As for the strawberry flavor, perhaps it was the brand of freeze dried strawberries you used? If you have another brand available, we’d try that for next time. Thanks for giving these a try!
perfect for the summer!
These cookies were FANTASTIC! and they definitely didn’t last in the house!
I did end up using white chocolate chips, since white chocolate chunks were hard for me to find but it was delicious none the less!
Made these cookies for the first time and they were amazing! I had some freeze dried strawberries that needed to be used, came across this recipe and it was perfect! So much flavour and easy to make. I will definitely be baking these again.