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These fluffy, creamy and delicious Cream Cheese cookies are one of a kind. They are tender, perfectly sweet, and have a slight hint of tanginess from the cream cheese that just melts in your mouth.

Eat them just as they are or dust them lightly with powdered sugar or you can also drizzle a little glaze over them.

When they come out of the oven, beautifully domed and enticingly aromatic, I bet you just can't resist having them. One bite and you are reeled in for more.

I have always loved baking and I find it very relaxing and rewarding. Over the years baking has become a beautiful bonding time for me and my son.

My son absolutely loves baking and is very enthusiastic about it. Very often we look at the ingredients in the pantry and work out a recipe we can cook together.

Just the other day I bought a batch of cream cheese from Costco. I wanted to bake some delicious New York-style Mini Cheesecakes with it. In case you are wondering why mini cheesecakes, that is because my son loves sharing his baked goodies with his friends and they are just perfect to share.

Well, that is a story for some other time. let's not get derailed and get back to the cream cheese cookies.

Now the thing is that Costco sells everything in bulk and here I was left with another slab of cream cheese, with no intention of making another cheesecake.

So when my son came to me a few days later asking to bake some cookies, I thought why not make some cookies with the cream cheese I have in the fridge.

I always feel cookies should be easy to make, enough to share, delicious to taste, flavors balanced enough to have one whole cookie, and difficult to resist. These Cream Cheese Cookies tick all those boxes.

The texture of the cream cheese cookies took me by surprise, it is soft, fluffy, and almost cloud-like but when you take a bite it has a cake-like texture so much different than the usual cookies. Believe me, they are addictive.

If you are looking for some crisp cookies you should check out some other cookies that I have like Cashew cookies, Tutti frutti cookies, or Nankhatai.

The first time I made these cookies, they baked beautifully and tasted awesome however they did not have the puff I was looking for. That gets me to my next part, the need to refrigerate the dough before baking.

Why do you refrigerate/ chill the Cream Cheese Cookies dough before baking?

When you chill the cookie dough it solidifies the fats in the dough. So when you bake the cookies the butter slowly comes down to room temperature and thus leads to puffier and well-raised cookies. In this case, it solidifies both butter and cream cheese thus helping the cookies to hold their shape.

Another interesting but not much-shared fact is that chilling/refrigerating the cream cheese cookies dough allows the flour in the dough to fully hydrate by absorbing moisture from the eggs. This process firms up the dough and thus makes properly raised and evenly baked cookies.

If you do not refrigerate the dough before baking the cream cheese cookies then you will get thinner and less fluffy cookies.

This gets me to another important question.

How long should I refrigerate the cookie dough?

Under pressing circumstances, 1 hour is a good time to refrigerate the dough. However, as per my personal experience, it is always good to refrigerate it overnight.

How do I store the Cream Cheese Cookies?

You can store the cream cheese cookies for 2 to 3 days in an air-tight container in a cool dry place, after that you need to refrigerate them and they will stay good for a couple of weeks. This is important because of the use of cream cheese in the recipe.

Ingredients for Cream Cheese Cookies

• Unsalted butter - Always use unsalted butter as every butter has different amount of salt. It is good to add salt as per requirement. (room temperature)
• Cream cheese - Room temperature
• All-purpose flour/ Maida
• Granulated sugar
• Baking powder
• Vanilla extract - Good quality vanilla extract enhances the flavor of the cookies.
• Egg - large egg at room temperature
• Salt

Step by step guide for how to make Cream Cheese Cookies

• Take a bowl and sift in the all-purpose flour/ maida along with baking powder and salt. This just helps break any lumps in the flour. You can always just mix all the ingredients using a wire whisk instead of a sieve.

• In a stand mixer add the room temperature butter and cream cheese and mix it or cream it with the paddle attachment. You can even use an electric hand mixer and on a low speed mix both the ingredients till they come together and turn soft.

• Now add the fine sugar/ granular sugar to the bowl and beat it on a medium speed for 3 to 4 minute or till the mixture turns light and fluffy.

• Add the egg and vanilla extract and keep mixing at low speed till everything is well combined. It will take about a minute but it will come together.

• In between every step while making cream cheese cookies remember to scrape down the bowl.
• Add the sifted flour mix to the bowl and beat/ mix till its well combines making a soft and sticky dough. Scrape the bowl and mix everything once with a spatula to check that there are no dry pockets.

• Cover the bowl with cling wrap and chill the cream cheese cookies dough overnight or at least for 1 hour in the refrigerator.

• Pre-heat the oven at 375F/ 190C, I always prefer that the oven is pre-heated and ready at least 10 minute before inserting the baking pan. This helps in even baking.
• Line a baking tray with butter paper or parchment paper.
• Take the dough out of the fridge, take a cookies scoop/ small ice cream scoop which will be about 1 tablespoon of dough and using a greased/ dampened hand roll it into a ball and place it on the baking tray. Place each ball about 2 inch apart. This is very important to give cookies enough room to spread and not stick together.

• Refrigerate the tray with cookies dough balls in the fridge for another 5 to 10 minutes. This is not a must/ required step but it helps if you have warm hands. I have warm hands so when I roll the cookie dough ball the heat transfers to the ball making them slightly soft. Putting them in the fridge for few minutes helps solidify the fats again.

• Bake the cream cheese cookies at 375F for 10 minutes or until you see a little browning around the bottom edges.

• The cookies will be beautifully domes and puffed up when you get them out of the oven, let them rest and they will slowly set till they come down to room temperature. Enjoy them warm after few minutes of resting or let it cool down completely and enjoy them with a drizzle of glaze or any fruit/citrus compote or simply dust them with powdered sugar.

Some pro tips for baking

• Always use good quality measuring tools and equipments
• Measure the flour correctly, do not press down the flour in the measuring cup. You will end up adding extra flour if you over load the cup resulting in denser cookies.
• Always refrigerate the dough for few hours before baking.
• Pre-heat the oven 10 to 15 minutes before baking so that the oven does not loose any heat when you insert the baking pan.
• Grease your had for easy rolling of the cream cheese cookies dough balls.
• Use butter and cream cheese at room temperature.

IF YOU LIKED THIS RECIPE YOU COULD ALSO TRY THESE ONES

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HAVE YOU TRIED THE CREAM CHEESE COOKIES RECIPE?

DROP A COMMENT BELOW, I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR EXPERIENCES AND HOW THEY TURNED OUT.

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