Strawberry Shortcake Cookies

These buttery, sweet strawberry shortcake cookies are made with with a cream cheese filling, freeze-dried strawberries, and a sweet and crunchy crumble topping. They're 100% strawberry shortcake in cookie form - you'll love them!

This post may contain affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, we may earn a small commission, at no additional cost to you.

Ingredients You'll Need and Why

This isn't a cheap cookie, with freeze-dried fruit, butter, and the cream cheese filling. We really recommend reading through everything here carefully and making sure you don't use unlisted substitutions. These are our notes from recipe testing and you can find the full recipe card below with complete measurements and instructions.

• Flour: this should be plain all-purpose white flour. We haven't tested with any gluten-free blends or alternatives for this recipe.
• Butter: your butter should be at room temperature. You could try with a good non-dairy alternative (in block form, not in a tub) but the cookies tend to spread more with vegan butter.
• Sugar: you need brown, white, and icing (powdered) sugar for these cookies. All three are important. White sugar adds a crisp element to the edges of the cookies, brown sugar adds a flavour boost and helps the cookies spread more, and icing sugar is needed for the cream cheese filling.
• Strawberries: use freeze-dried strawberries, not fresh, dried, or strawberry jam. They're easy to find and the cookies don't need a ridiculous amount.
• Cream cheese: unsweetened cream cheese in block form (or if you live outside North America, plain cream cheese in a tub). It should be the cream cheese meant for baking, not for spreading on bagels.
• Baking soda: using soda instead of baking powder in cookies makes for more spread rather than rise - don't mix them up.

Use the JUMP TO RECIPE button at the top, or scroll to the bottom of the post to see the printable recipe card with full ingredient measurements and complete instructions.

How to Make Shortcake Cookies

There are a couple extra steps here that make these strawberry shortcake cookies so good. You need to make the cream cheese filling and freeze it before anything else, then mix and bake the crumble topping before starting the dough. There's no need to chill the dough, though!

Step 1: mix the cream cheese filling ingredients very well. You can mix by hand if preferred but it will come together more quickly with electric beaters. This is very similar to cream cheese frosting.

Step 2: spoon teaspoonfuls of the filling onto a lined baking sheet or something flat that will fit in your freezer (pictured is a small baking sheet). Don't skip the parchment paper. Freeze until solid, at least 30 minutes.

Step 3: mix the crumble topping ingredients with your hands to combine. This is the same type of streusel topping used for recipes like our cherry crumble cake, just a smaller amount.

Step 4: bake the crumble for ten minutes, or until lightly browned and crisp. Baking it in advance before topping the cookies improves the flavour and texture.

Step 5: beat the butter and sugars to combine. This isn't a long enough mixing time to fully cream the ingredients but they should be slightly lighter and fluffier after a couple minutes of mixing.

Step 6: mix in the egg and vanilla, then the flour, baking soda, and salt. The dry ingredients are sifted in to avoid any lumps and so that everything can be mixed in one bowl - if you don't have a fine mesh sieve, you can whisk the dry ingredients well before adding.

Related: Strawberry Cinnamon Rolls

Step 7: add the freeze-dried strawberries and mix to incorporate. This is exactly the same as mixing chocolate chip cookies. Use a folding motion.

Step 8: measure the dough into 13 relatively equal pieces (we use an ice cream scoop but you can weigh if preferred). Press the dough into a disc with your fingers, add the frozen cream cheese mixture to the middle, and fold the dough around to seal. Gently press the top into the crumble topping and place onto the baking sheet.

Step 9: repeat for all of the cookies and place onto two lined baking sheets. Be sure to leave some space between the cookies to allow for spreading. Don't try to squeeze them all onto one sheet together! If needed, bake each sheet separately.

Step 10: bake until lightly golden, about 12 minutes. This makes a baker's dozen, or 13 cookies. They're best when fully cooled to allow the filling to set.

Expert Tips for the Best Cookies

• Pre-bake the crumble: we found in testing that baking the crumble topping first prevented the cookies from being too soft. When added before baking, the crumble melted into the cookies, making them spread too much and softening the overall texture.
• Don't skip freezing the filling: you won't have a chance of incorporating the cream cheese filling into the cookies if it's not frozen first. This needs a little planning ahead.
• Don't chill the dough: chilling makes the dough too hard and it's almost impossible to shape it around the cream cheese. The recipe is specifically developed as a no-chill cookie.

More Cookie Recipes