Strawberry Cheesecake Cookie Cups
Ingredients
- 2 pounds Cheryl's Cut-Out Cookie Dough
- 8 ounces cream cheese (room temperature)
- ½ ounce freeze-dried strawberries (enough to make about 4 tablespoons of powder)
- 1 cup heavy cream, cold
- ⅓ cup powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325° F. Line a nonstick mini muffin tin with mini cupcake liners.
- Roll out the dough to ¼-inch thickness and use a flower cookie cutter (approximately 3.5 inches in diameter) to cut out shapes.
- Place the flowers in the mini cupcake liners, pressing down in the center. Make sure to leave enough space between the flowers so the petals do not touch.
- Bake for 12 minutes or until lightly brown around the edges. The cookies will puff up while baking; re-press the centers while still warm.
- Allow to cool for 10 minutes. Then, gently remove the cookies and transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
- While the cookies are cooling, make the filling. Use a food processor* to grind the freeze-dried strawberries into a very fine powder.
- Using an electric mixer, beat together the cream cheese and freeze-dried strawberry powder until smooth.
- In a separate bowl, whip the heavy cream and powdered sugar with an electric mixer until stiff peaks form.
- Gently fold the cream cheese mixture into the whipped cream until combined.
- Transfer the strawberry cheesecake filling to a piping bag fitted with a medium-sized round tip. Pipe the filling into the cooled cookie cups.
- Optional: Sift extra freeze-dried strawberry powder over the tops of the cookie cups.
Notes
*A spice grinder or mortar and pestle will also work well to grind the freeze-dried fruit. Alternatively, you can buy powdered freeze-dried fruit.