Strawberry and Cream Cookies

I was looking for summery cookies to bake and when I start looking, I can find all sorts of interesting recipes that I want to try! I have to balance my desire to bake with the fact that I have more free time and also the fact that the house is fairly warm. I try to find recipes that I can bake first thing in the morning, before it is too hot, and that will only use the oven for a short time.

These strawberry and cream cookies sounded perfect for summer, which was exactly what I had been looking for. There is an abundance of fruit in the summer, but it is difficult to use fresh fruit in cookie baking as fruits contain so much liquid. Once in a while you can make a quick jam with fruit, but that’s about it. These cookies use freeze-dried strawberries, which are now readily available at the store. They add the flavor of strawberries without some of the other complications.

I ended up making half a recipe (again, making sure the oven wasn’t on too long), and you do want to note the freeze-dried strawberry quantity. The half recipe used the smaller bag that I got at the store, about 25 grams. It seems like it should weigh more but it doesn’t, and you don’t want to have too many strawberries. I also had slightly less than the quantity of cream cheese, as I thought I had more on hand than I did, but it didn’t make much of a difference. These cookies are soft, but the flavor of the strawberries can’t be beat!

Strawberry and Cream Cookies
2 1/4 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla
6 ounces white chocolate, chopped
1 1/2 cups freeze-dried strawberries (about 45 grams)

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and salt; set aside. In a large mixer bowl, beat the cream cheese and butter on medium until smooth. Add the sugar and brown sugar and beat on medium to combine. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula and add the egg and vanilla, stirring to incorporate.

With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour mixture, stirring until the dough almost comes together. Add the white chocolate and the freeze-dried strawberries and turn the mixer on and off to distribute them into the dough. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least two hours.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

Scoop the dough into 1 1/2 tablespoon balls of dough and place on the prepared baking sheets.

Bake for about 12 minutes, until the cookies are slightly browned along the bottom edges. Allow the cookies to rest on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Recipe from Sally’s Baking Addiction

Strawberry Shortbread Cookies

I hadn’t brought cookies to work in a while, and I figured that I would have some time to bake. Of course, I chose a recipe that looked great but then didn’t actually make that many cookies! This recipe makes less than two dozen cookies, and not all of them were ready for prime time, so I just took some to my friend at work rather than bringing the entire batch. Soon I will bring something for the bigger group!

This recipe is a roll-out cookie, which isn’t something I make that frequently. They really aren’t that hard to make, and I have made more recently so I am starting to feel more comfortable with the process. These are roll-out shortbread cookies, with some added freeze-dried strawberries. I had those on hand since I had used them previously, so I didn’t have to get any additional ingredients to make these. I used my egg cookie cutter since Easter is so soon, but you could honestly use any shape.

The dough for these is very simple, and you hardly need to crush the freeze-dried strawberries as I added to the dough and the mixer does a good job of crushing them. The first roll is the hardest, when the dough is cold, but it gets better. The original recipe used a white chocolate glaze, but I changed that to a powdered sugar icing. I was a little short on glaze, so I did end up sprinkling the cookies with additional crushed freeze-dried strawberries to make them look fancy. I like these cookies, I don’t think that the strawberry flavor is strong, but they look lovely.

Strawberry Shortbread Cookies
1 cup butter, room temperature
½ cup powdered sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 ¼ cups flour
¼ teaspoon salt
⅓ cup freeze-dried strawberries, crushed

¾ cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon freeze dried strawberries, crushed into powder
2-4 tablespoons milk

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla on medium until light. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour and salt. When the dough is almost fully formed, stir in the crushed freeze-dried strawberries. Divide the dough into two halves. Shape each half into a flat disk and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 1 hour.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

On a lightly floured surface, roll one piece of the dough until about ¼” thick. Cut the desired shapes out and place on the prepared baking sheet. Reroll the dough one additional time, then repeat with the second piece of dough. The number of cookies will depend on the size of your cookie cutter.

Bake the cookies 15-20 minutes, until beginning to turn golden. The thickness of your cookies will impact whether your cookies bake for a shorter or longer time.

Once the cookies come out of the oven, allow then to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once the cookies are cool, make the glaze: in a small bowl combine the powdered sugar and powdered freeze-dried strawberries. Add 2 tablespoons milk, whisking frequently, until the glaze is the right consistency. If too thin add additional powdered sugar, additional milk if too thick.

Drizzle the icing over the cooled cookies. Sprinkle with additional crushed freeze-dried strawberries if desired. Allow the glaze to set before serving.

Recipe from Little Vintage Bakery

Strawberry Chocolate Thumbprints

I know that it is a little late for Valentine’s Day, but these were the cookies that I wanted to bake. I actually didn’t make them in time for the actual day, but that’s ok. For Valentine’s Day I made sugar cookies and decorated them with colored royal icing. That was a fun activity for my husband and I to do on Valentine’s Day, nice and quiet, and then we got to eat the cookies!

These strawberry and chocolate thumbprints have a beautiful strawberry filling. I had used freeze-dried strawberries for another recipe, so I had those available. You make a ganache with white chocolate, which I had not done before, and it turned out well. The original recipe had you make the cookies first, then make the ganache while the cookies bake. My ganache was easy to make but took several hours to thicken, so I would suggest making that first.

The cookies are quick and simple to make. The biggest challenge is that they crack a bit when you make the thumbprint, but you can simply press the cookie back together. If you flatten the cookies slightly first, the thumbprint is easier to make. After the cookies bake, make the thumbprint indentation again, widening it a bit, so you have more room for filling! These cookies taste great and look just perfect for the holiday.

Strawberry Chocolate Thumbprints
1/2 cup white chocolate
1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon heavy whipping cream, separated
1/3 cup freeze-dried strawberries, ground into 1 tablespoon
Red food coloring

3/4 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
2 egg yolks
1 teaspoon salt
1 3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder
Additional sugar
Additional crushed freeze-dried strawberries

Make the strawberry ganache: in a small bowl combine 1 tablespoon of powdered freeze-dried strawberries and 1 tablespoon heavy cream to make a paste. Add the paste and the ½ cup heavy cream to a saucepan. Heat over medium heat and whisk until the mixture is hot and it starts to bubble around the edges. Place the white chocolate chips in a medium bowl and microwave for 30 seconds. Remove the bowl from the microwave and pour the hot cream mixture onto the white chips. Allow to stand for a few minutes and then stir with a small spatula until the mixture is smooth. If desired, add a few drops of red food coloring to enhance the color. Allow the ganache to cool and thicken slightly; this may take 1-2 hours.

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter and sugar on medium until light. Add the egg yolks and salt and mix on medium. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour and cocoa powder, mixing until the dough comes together.

Shape the dough into 1-inch balls. Roll the balls in sugar and place on the prepared baking sheets. Use your thumb or other implement to make an indentation in the top of each cookie, then enlarge the indent. Seal any cracks that have formed in the dough as the indentation is made.

Bake for 9-11 minutes, reform the indentation as needed when the cookies come out of the oven. Cool completely.

To assemble the cookies: place the ganache in a piping bag and fill the indentation in each cookie with the strawberry ganache. Sprinkle with additional crushed freeze-dried strawberries, if desired. Allow the ganache to set before serving.

Recipe from The Cozy Plum

Neapolitan Cookies

I have wanted to make these cookies for a while, they look so pretty and what fun to make cookies that resemble Neapolitan ice cream! While the dough for these cookies isn’t complex, I knew it would be more involved than some of the cookies I make since you divide the dough to make three flavors. My friend sent me a video of a similar recipe, so when she came over to bake I knew we were likely to make these!

The unusual ingredient of these cookies is freeze-dried strawberries, but those are fairly easy to find these days. I got mine at Trader Joe’s, but I can also get them at the grocery store or large stores like Target. For cocoa powder, I could have used my standard but I wanted to use dark cocoa powder for a darker color. I like the look with the dark cocoa, but it’s up to you to decide what you want to use.

With the two of us working on these, we had a good system going and it didn’t take too long. We made little balls of dough and then put three together in a triangle shape, rolled and flattened it a bit, and they were ready to bake. Mine baked for about 12 minutes, and I will say they are quite flat, which is fine. They are huge though, and I think the “baby” cookie we made with 7-8 grams of each dough that was left over was a better size. These cookies have wonderful flavor and you clearly can tell the difference between the strawberry, chocolate, and vanilla parts of the cookie. Maybe a little puffier would have been ok, but these are wonderful any way you look at it.

Neapolitan Cookies
2½ cups flour
¾ teaspoon baking soda
¾ teaspoon salt
1 cup butter, room temperature
1¾ cups sugar
1 egg plus 1 yolk
2 teaspoons vanilla
½ cup freeze-dried strawberries
Red food coloring (optional)
2 tablespoons cocoa powder

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, and salt; set aside. In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter until creamy. Add the sugar and beat on medium until light. Add the egg, egg yolk, and vanilla, and stir to combine. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour mixture.

Divide the dough into three equal pieces. Leave one piece as is; this will be the vanilla portion of your cookies.

Place another piece of the dough in a mixer bowl or medium bowl. In a food processor, crush the freeze-dried strawberries until powder. Add the powder to the piece of dough and mix. If desired, add red food color to enhance the color. This will be the strawberry portion of your cookies.

Place the last piece of dough into a mixer bowl or medium bowl. Add the cocoa powder to the dough and mix to combine. This will be the chocolate portion of your cookies.

Shape each section of dough into 15-gram balls. Take one vanilla, one strawberry, and one chocolate portion (45 grams total) and press together. Shape the dough into a ball and then flatten the ball somewhat on the baking sheet. Place no more than 6 cookies on a sheet.

Bake for 10-12 minutes, until the cookies are barley browned on the bottom. They will puff up and then flatten as they cool. Cool on the baking sheets for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.  

Recipe from Minnesota Monthly

Strawberry Lemon Bars

My husband and I have too many weekends that are interrupted by work or something like that, and it turned out that we had a weekend with no activities planned. We decided that we would try and do as much as we could that wasn’t work related. One of the things we came up with is going to a local farmers market. We decided to go to the farmer’s market in a nearby town, as they had changed locations a while ago and we hadn’t gone since they had moved.

Farmer’s markets can be challenging. There is so much good produce and berries, but my house is usually too warm. I’ve found that I have to know what I am going to make and get the needed ingredients, otherwise I just wander aimlessly. As we were wrapping up, I knew I had this recipe that needed strawberries, so I checked the quantity and got what I needed. I ended up getting strawberries that were quite ripe, so I made the bars right away.

The dough/batter for these bars is quite cake-like, and it looks really strange after you have added the lemon juice. The dough did come together, which was a relief! My strawberries were very ripe, so when I added them to the dough and the glaze, strawberry juice mixed in giving a slight pink tinge. It wasn’t too noticeable after baking and cutting, so it was fine. These are quite cakey, thick, but have a lovely combination of sweet strawberries and tart lemon.

Strawberry Lemon Bars
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 egg
¼ cup lemon juice
Zest of 1 lemon
2-1/3 cups flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1-1/4 cups diced strawberries

1-1/4 cups powdered sugar
2-3 tablespoons lemon juice
¼ cup diced strawberries
Additional lemon juice/milk

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9” square pan with foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large mixer bowl, combine the butter and sugar. Beat on medium until light. Add the egg and mix again on medium to combine. Stir in the lemon juice and zest. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Fold in the diced strawberries with a spatula.

Spread the mixture evenly into the prepared pan.

Bake for 40-45 minutes, until golden. Test the bars with a thin knife inserted into the center of the bars, which will come out clean if the bars are baked. Allow the bars to cool before glazing.

Make the glaze: in a medium bowl, whisk the powdered sugar and 2 tablespoons lemon juice until smooth. If the glaze is too thick, add additional lemon juice or milk. Carefully stir in the diced strawberries. Spread the glaze on the bars and allow the glaze to set before cutting into bars.  

Recipe from Kitchen Fun with my Three Sons

Strawberry Cake Mix Cookies

Once in a while, you come across a recipe that looks great, and when you read the recipe you realize that it uses a cake, cookie, or scone mix as the base. I think that everyone needs to have some really simple recipes available that you know will taste great. This is one of those recipes. It requires just a cake mix, eggs, and oil, and then a fairly simple strawberry glaze. I’m sure you could also use a powdered sugar glaze if you wanted to save even more time.

This is the simplest recipe, and I made the cookies in the five minutes before preparing dinner! They are that quick. The dough is very thick, but I didn’t have any trouble scooping it out. This recipe made about 30 cookies, so they aren’t huge, but that’s a better number of cookies for sharing. They are quite brightly pink, but they look great once they are glazed.

The glaze for these is a little different, with the strawberry jam providing the strawberry flavor and subtle pink color. I recommend whisking the jam a bit to break it up, and then it’s easier to incorporate into the glaze. That being said, I guess the bowl I used to make the icing was too small as I seemed to get powdered sugar everywhere! You can either ice the cookies with a spatula or dunk them in the glaze. I dipped the cookies in the glaze and that was easy. These cookies have a lovely strawberry flavor, are soft and chewy, and are perfectly pink for summer.

Strawberry Cake Mix Cookies
1 strawberry cake mix
2 eggs
1/3 cup vegetable oil

2 cups powdered sugar
3 tablespoons strawberry jam
2-3 tablespoons milk

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the strawberry cake mix, eggs, and vegetable oil, stirring to combine. The dough will be thick. Scoop the dough onto the prepared baking sheets using a tablespoon-sized cookie scoop.

Bake for 9-11 minutes, until the cookies are set. Allow the cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once the cookies are cool, make the glaze. In a medium bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, strawberry jam, and a small amount of milk. Whisk, continuing to add milk, until the glaze is thick but spreadable. Spread about 1 teaspoon of glaze on top of each of the cooled cookies. Allow the glaze to set before serving.

Recipe from Practically Homemade

Strawberry Lemonade Bars

Lemon bars are one of my favorite things to eat, as it’s hard to go wrong with a classic lemon bar. I had recently bought some freeze-dried strawberries to use in a different recipe, but I didn’t think that it would use all of them. This recipe, for Strawberry Lemonade Bars, called for a small quantity of freeze-fried strawberries, and I thought I would give it a try. Usually, you use the freeze-dried berries whole or pulverize it into a powder, so this was different that you slightly crush the berries.

This recipe isn’t difficult, but juicing the lemons takes some time. You bake the crust, and then make the filling and bake that. The recipe calls for ¾ cup lemon juice, which is either three or four lemons. You also add lemonade concentrate, for more lemon flavor. I do think that you could use less than ¾ of a cup of juice, as these bars are very tart.

When I made the crust, it was such a small amount that I wasn’t sure that it would cover the bottom of the pan. It did cover, barely, and came out of the oven golden brown. It is important that you make the filling just when the crust comes out of the oven, so that the bars come together properly. I do think that you need to watch the filling carefully, as I wished I had taken my bars out of the oven about two minutes before I did. They still look wonderful when dusted with powdered sugar and they are so good, but a little on the tart side!

Strawberry Lemonade Bars
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 cup flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
Zest of one lemon

3 eggs
1 3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup lemon juice
4 tablespoons frozen lemonade concentrate
1/3 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup freeze-dried strawberries, roughly crushed
Powdered sugar

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9” x 13” pan with foil and spray the foil with nonstick spray.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter and sugar on medium until light. With the mixer on low, gradually add the flour, salt, and lemon zest. Mix until crumbly, and then press into the base of the prepared pan. Prick with a fork.

Bake for 15-17 minutes. Remove the crust from the oven but leave the oven on while you make the filling.

In a large mixer bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar until combined. Add the lemon juice and lemonade concentrate and stir to combine. Stop the mixer and add the flour, baking powder, and salt. Whisk on medium low to combine. Fold in the freeze-dried strawberries. Pour over the warm crust and smooth evenly.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the filling is set.

Sprinkle with powdered sugar and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Once completely cooled, sprinkle with additional powdered sugar and cut into bars.

Recipe from Sweet Recipeas

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam Bars

It’s that time of year when the strawberries and the rhubarb are ripe! Our weather has been extra rainy lately, so it seems like a lot of our produce is taking a little longer this year. I don’t mind that too much as I am hopeful for a summer that is more moderate. Perhaps that is too much to ask these days. One of my husband’s colleagues gave him some strawberry rhubarb jam, and while we wanted to have some to eat on toast, we both figured it would make for a tasty bar cookie.

That very week, this recipe popped up in my social media feed, and my husband wanted to make them right away. This recipe uses 1 cup of jam, for a 9” x 13” pan, which would use all the jam we had. I opted to make a half recipe in an 8” square pan, so that we would still have jam left. That made for a slightly thinner bar, which was ok.

I got these bars prepped, and then went to make the topping. I looked through all of my baking items and I was completely out of sliced almonds. I do use them a lot, so I suppose I understand, but that was very frustrating. I thought about topping the bars with some freeze-dried strawberries, but I figured those would burn. The thinner bar baked faster, which wasn’t surprising, but I could have taken them out of the oven about two minutes earlier and that would have been better. I could have also added more jam, as more jam is never wrong!

Strawberry Rhubarb Jam Bars
¾ cup butter, room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
½ cup almond flour
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups flour
1 cup strawberry rhubarb jam

3 tablespoons flour
3 tablespoons sugar
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons butter, cold
¼ cup sliced almonds

Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9” x 13” pan with foil and spray with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large mixer bowl, combine the butter and sugar and mix on medium until light. Add the almond flour and vanilla and mix to incorporate. Add the salt and flour and mix on low until the mixture becomes crumbly. Press the mixture evenly into the prepared pan.

Top the dough with the strawberry rhubarb jam.

In a small bowl, combine the flour, sugar, salt, 2 tablespoons butter, and sliced almonds. Use your fingers to work the mixture into crumbs and sprinkle over the jam.

Bake for about 50 minutes, until the dough is baked through.

Allow the cookies to cool completely before cutting into bars.

Recipe from Sweet Recipeas

Lemon Strawberry Blondies

It's been hard getting back into the swing of things, but I had been planning to make these bars for a long time. The original recipe calls for butter, but I used vegan butter (margarine) so that my friend who is dairy free could enjoy them also. You do have to be careful with strawberries as you don’t want them to be too ripe. I bought the strawberries just before I wanted to make the bars.

This recipe is a little smaller than I typically make, as it uses a 9” square pan rather than a 9” x 13” pan. I could have adjusted the recipe but I figured the 9” square would be sufficient. It’s nearing the end of the year and it’s pretty quiet at work. These bars are very cake like, so that’s just something that you must work with. The bars are soft, like a cake, and the strawberries add a little zing. I never know how big to cut the strawberries, and I think they could have been slightly smaller. I stored the bars in the refrigerator as they are so soft and the strawberries are wet. These bars have a great strawberry flavor and the lemon is subtle but noticeable.

Lemon Strawberry Blondies

1 cup butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

2 1/4 cups flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup diced fresh strawberries

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon strawberry puree

1 tablespoon lemon juice

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9” square baking pan with foil and spray the foil with nonstick cooking spray.

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter and sugar on medium until smooth. Add the egg and beat again on medium. Add the lemon juice and stir to combine. The mixture may look curdled, but it will smooth out.

Add the flour, baking powder, and salt and mix on low to combine. Add the diced strawberries and stir with a spatula until combined. Spread the batter into the prepared pan.

Bake for 30-35 minutes, until the bars are set along the edges. Allow the cookies to cool completely before icing.

Make the icing: puree the strawberries in a food processor and the strain to get the juice/puree. In a medium bowl whisk together the powdered sugar, strawberry puree and 1 tablespoon lemon juice. Spread the smooth glaze over the cooled bars. Allow the glaze to set before cutting into bars.

Recipe from The View from Great Island

Strawberry Almond Bars

One of the many ingredients that seem to collect in our house are different types of jams and preserves. The British store that we like to visit has a wide variety of jams, lots of marmalade and we pick up items that seem new and interesting. At the grocery store that applies too. Anything new will often peak our interest. For this recipe, I used strawberry honey preserves, which is a traditional preserve just made with honey. I also considered using rhubarb ginger preserves, but perhaps that would have been too much.

This recipe calls for sliced almonds, which are used as the topping but can also be used for the ground almonds. Sliced almonds grind up very nicely in the food processor. Right now, I have some almond flour on hand as I did some gluten free baking, so I used that. Either would work. You could even substitute plain flour, but then the bars would lose some of its almond flavor.

This bottom crust is very thin. When I started pressing the dough into the pan, it looked like an impossibly small amount to dough to cover the entire pan. It worked though, you must be patient and take your time. You top the bars with a cream cheese icing/topping before baking, which is quite different. These bars are thin and some are very delicate. I like the strawberry combined with almond. I think I can taste the honey in the preserves, which I like, but it makes the strawberry flavor just a little less prominent.

Strawberry Almond Bars

1/2 cup butter, melted

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 cup flour

1/2 cup ground almonds/almond flour

3/4 cup strawberry preserves

4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/4 tsp almond extract

1/4 cup sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, combine the melted butter with flour, powdered sugar, and ground almonds. Stir until the mixture is crumbly. Press into the bottom of 9” x 13” baking dish. Spread the preserves onto the bottom crust, making sure that the preserves don’t touch the sides of the pan.

Make the topping: in a mixer bowl beat the cream cheese, powdered sugar, and almond extract on medium speed until smooth. Pipe the topping in diagonal lines on top of the preserves. Sprinkle with sliced almonds.

Bake for 20-24 minutes, until the crust is lightly browned. Cool completely before cutting into bars.

Recipe from Shugary Sweets