Soft Strawberry Cheese Cookies

When I found myself with just a few strawberries to use up from our recent trip to the strawberry patch, I had to decide whether to selfishly stuff them in my mouth when no one was looking or use them in a recipe. Being always on the lookout for a new favorite recipe, I just had to find something to make with them.

The choices are really endless. There’s of course shortcake or pie, but there wasn’t enough of them for either of those — at least not to serve the entire family. Crepes and cobbler were out for the same reason. With just enough to make one cup of chopped strawberries to add to a recipe, my options were more limited than I had thought.

Scones sounded good, but although these strawberries were very sweet I didn’t think they could hold their own against the biscuit-type batter of a scone. A quick bread sounded interesting, but I wasn’t in the mood for bread. A small batch of cupcakes was getting closer to what I was looking for, but still not quite there.

COOKIES! That’s what I wanted. COOKIES!

My only concerns then were whether or not the strawberries would be sweet enough on their own and how to keep the strawberries from turning to mush while mixing. These concerns were remedied by the addition of a few white chocolate chips to my cream cheese cookie base and then coating the chopped strawberries with a little flour before carefully hand folding them into the batter just before putting them on the cookie sheets.

The results were strawberry bliss! Sort of like bite-size strawberry shortcakes, these gems didn’t last long at our house.

Hubby and the kids devoured them within a day and a half, and for this I am — Simply Grateful.

• Servings: 18 - 24 cookies
• Print

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 Cup Flour
• 1/2 tsp. Baking Powder
• 1/8 tsp. Salt
• 1/4 Cup Butter
• 4 oz. Mascarpone Cheese or Cream Cheese
• 3/4 Cup Sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tsp. Vanilla Extract
• 1 Cup Chopped Fresh Strawberries
• 2 Tbsp. Lemon Juice
• 2 Tbsp. Flour
• 1/4 Cup White Chocolate Chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 and line cookie sheets with parchment paper.
2. Pour lemon juice over strawberries and let sit for 2 minutes. Drain.
3. Whisk together 1 1/4 cups flour, salt and baking powder and set aside.
4. Beat butter with sugar until light and fluffy.
5. Add softened cheese to butter mixture and whip with a whisk until creamy.
6. Add egg and vanilla and mix well.
7. Slowly add the flour mixture in three separate batches and mix until combined. Do not over mix.
8. Stir in white chocolate chips.
9. Sprinkle strawberries with remaining 2 Tbsp. flour and toss to coat.
10. Fold strawberries gently into batter.
11. Drop batter by heaping tablespoons onto cookie sheets and refrigerate for 10 minutes before baking.
12. Sprinkle cookies with raw or sanding sugar (see note).
13. Bake 13 – 15 minutes until edges are golden brown.
14. Let cookies cool for 2 minutes before removing from sheets to wire racks to cool completely.

Cooking Note

Note: These cookies can either be dusted with raw or sanding sugar prior to baking or with powdered sugar after they have cooled.

My original recipe called for cream cheese, but I was out so opted to try the mascarpone. It worked beautifully. I will definitely be swapping these cheeses on a regular basis when the occasion arises.

These cookies are very moist. In order to keep them fresh, if they are around for any length of time, be sure to refrigerate them.

Advertisement