Strawberry Cream Cheese Cookies

Last Updated on December 14, 2022 by Kathryn Donangelo

Strawberry Cream Cheese Cookies are soft, buttery, chewy, and filled with strawberry jam. These little cookies are perfect for the holidays or any occasion! Made with simple ingredients and are easy to whip up!

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Strawberry Cream Cheese Cookies

These Strawberry Cream Cheese Cookies also known as Thumbprint Cookies are the perfect cookies to make all year round! Your taste buds will love the buttery, sweet, and fruity flavors from these homemade cookies.

This recipe yields 44 cookies and they are the perfect size cookie for the holidays, cookie platters, parties, or any occasion. You can fill the center of these cookies with any jam or jelly you want- you can even do a combination if you want different flavors.

These cookies are different than your typical Thumbprint Cookies because we cream together butter and cream cheese in the cookie dough which adds richness and makes them extra flavorful, soft, and light.

Ingredients

• Flour: Spoon and level regular all-purpose flour when measuring it. Be sure not to scoop it out of the bag using the measuring cup. This way, you won’t accidentally measure out too much. 
• Cream cheese: Full fat regular cream cheese is best because it has the most flavor but you could also use reduced-fat. Make sure the cream cheese is soft at room temperature.
• Sugar: We just use granulated sugar to add sweetness and it helps create an extra chewy texture.
• Baking powder & baking soda: Used to help make the cookies rise and form to get the perfect cookie shape.
• Butter: You could use salted or unsalted butter. If you use salted butter, make sure to omit salt from the recipe. The butter will add a buttery flavor to the cookies.
• Vanilla and almond extract: Enhances the flavors and a warm and sweet flavor.
• Jam: The star ingredient! I love using store-bought jam or homemade with fresh strawberries.

How To Make Strawberry Cream Cheese Cookies

Mix dry ingredients: In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and whisk together.

Cream butter: In a large bowl with an electric hand mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer on medium speed, cream together the butter, cream cheese, and sugar until light and fluffy. Be sure to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. About 2-3 minutes.

Mix dry and wet ingredients together: Add in egg, almond extract, and vanilla extract and continue to beat just until incorporated. Slowly add in the flour mixture and reduce the mixer speed. Beat together until combined until cookie dough has formed.

Chill dough: Cover dough and place in the refrigerator and chill for 1-3 hours. Dough will firm up significantly.

Scoop dough: Heat oven to 350 degrees F and Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Scoop the cookie dough into balls with a mini ice cream or small cookie scoop (equivalent to 2 tablespoons of dough), then cut the cookie balls in half to make 1 tablespoon cookie dough balls. Roll each dough ball in the palms of your hands to form the perfect round shape. You could also measure out 1 tablespoon cookie dough balls with a teaspoon.

Fill and bake: Place the cookies on prepared baking sheets. Use a 1/4 teaspoon spoon, the handle of a wooden spoon, or your thumb to gently press an indentation into the top of each cookie. Melt jam for 10-30 seconds and fill each hole to the top with melted jam. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until they are a light golden brown and cookies are set. Let cool for a few minutes, then carefully transfer to a wire cooling rack. Enjoy!

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Soft and chewy texture: Strawberry Cream Cheese Cookies are extra soft, buttery, and has a chewy center from the jam.

Kids can help: Let the kids roll the cookie dough into balls, press their thumbprint in the center, or fill the cookies with jam They will LOVE doing this!

Easy recipe: This recipe is easy to follow, straight-forward and doesn’t require any special kitchen gadgets.

Holiday cookie: These are the perfect cookie to make during the holidays. Everyone looks forward to eating Thumbprint cookies, am I right?! Bring a platter of these to a holiday party, put them on your cookie tray, or add them to your Christmas dessert table.

Pro Tips

Add sprinkles: Bake these cookies for any holidays! These are traditional Christmas cookies so add your favorite holiday colored sprinkles in the dough or roll cookie dough balls in sprinkles.

Perfect circle center: If you want to get a perfect shaped center, use the back of a wooden spoon or a 1/4 teaspoon. Using your thumbprint will make the centers more of an oval shape rather than a circle and the jam can leak our while baking.

Room temperature ingredients: For best results, it’s important that your cream cheese, eggs and butter are at room temperature. They incorporate with the other ingredients so much better when at room temperature. This will also help your cookies stay tender and soft.

Melt jam: When you melt the jam it makes it a lot easier to spoon into the center of the cookies. It will also give the cookies and smoother look.

Recipe Variations

Top Cookies: Top cookies with powdered sugar, a light vanilla or strawberry glaze, or drizzle with melted white chocolate chips.

Add crunch: Add your favorite nuts to the cookie dough or roll each dough ball into crushed nuts. Hazelnuts, pecans, almonds, and walnuts work great with this recipe. You could also add in freeze-dried strawberries for a crunchy strawberry flavor.

Switch up the jam: Use your favorite flavored jam to fill the center of these cookies. Some other favorite flavors are raspberry, grape, blueberry, apricot, and orange marmalade. You could also use homemade fresh fruit jam or jelly!

Leftovers & Storage

To-store: Store cookies at room temperature in an airtight container or large ziplock bag. They will stay fresh for 4 days. After 4 days, they will store well in the refrigerator for 2-3 more days.

To-freeze: Allow the baked cookies to cool completely. Place the cookie sheet in the freezer for 30 minutes to flash freeze or harden. Once hard, place the cookies in a large freezer bag or stack in an airtight container. Store for up to 3 months- when ready to serve, remove from the freezer to thaw until softened

Freeze Cookie Dough: You can freeze cookie dough by refrigerating it for at least an hour (the dough will be very soft) and form a large cookie dough ball and wrap with plastic wrap, then place in a large ziplock freezer bag. When ready to bake cookies, let the dough defrost completely, then portion cookie dough balls, shape, fill, and bake accordingly.

Other Cookie Recipes

• Strawberry Cake Mix Cookies
• Pie Crust Cookies
• Fruit Pizza Cookies
• Cut Out Sugar Cookies
• The BEST Chocolate Chip Cookies

This recipe is part of The Sweetest Season, a virtual cookie swap! This year we are raising money for Cookies 4 Kids Cancer, a non-profit organization dedicated to funding research for new treatments for childhood cancer.

You can help us raise money for this amazing cause by donating through out fundraising page. Oxo will match every dollar raised through the end of 2022 up to $100K so whatever money we raise will automatically double!

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