These Strawberry Shortbread Cookies are deliciously sweet with light berry flavor. Simply delicious!
We love shortbread cookies for their texture and flavor, but also because they are so easy to make. This strawberry cookie version is a fruity take on our Cacao Nib Hazelnut Cookie recipe, which you should also check out if you love shortbread!
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Why Make This Recipe
- Strawberry Flavor: Freeze-dried strawberries help give these cookies a delightful berry flavor. So sweet for a Valentine’s Day treat!
- So Easy: This recipe is quick and easy to make and only dirties one mixing bowl.
- Make-Ahead: Shortbread cookies are perfect for making in advance. Roll into a tube, chill, then slice and bake whenever you’re ready. You'll love these Lemon Shortbread Cookies and these Lavender Lemon Shortbread Cookies too!
- Great Shelf-Life: These cookies stay fresh in an airtight container for a week or more!
🥗 Ingredients
- Freeze-dried strawberries: You can find these near the produce section of well-stocked grocery stores, and you can also purchase freeze-dried strawberries online. Feel free to replace with another type of freeze dried fruit for different flavor options.
- Unsalted butter: We recommend unsalted butter for this recipe, but you can replace with salted. If so, reduce the kosher salt in the recipe to ⅛ teaspoon.
- Granulated sugar: You can replace with powdered sugar if you’d like. See FAQs below for the difference.
- Sparkling sugar: This is an optional garnish for the cookies but is so pretty! King Arthur Baking sells it in big jars, but you can also find small jars of Wilton Sparkling Sugar on Amazon.
🥣 Step-by-Step Instructions
Chop ½ cup freeze-dried strawberries into small pieces.
Using the paddle attachment on a stand mixer, cream together ¾ cup softened unsalted butter, ¾ cup sugar, strawberries, ¼ teaspoon salt, and 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract until smooth.
Add 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour, and combine just until incorporated, scraping down the mixer bowl as necessary.
Scrape the dough onto a sheet of parchment paper, and use your hands to form the cookie dough into one or two logs that are 1 ½ inches in diameter.
Wrap the logs in the parchment paper, then twist both sides to close tightly.
Chill in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours, and preferably 24 hours.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Unwrap log, and cut into slices slightly thinner than ½ inch.
Place shortbread slices on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet, with at least an inch of space between cookies.
Crush a few dried strawberries in a plastic baggie using a meat mallet, until you have strawberry powder.
Paint half of each cookie with the egg white, and sprinkle with sparkling sugar and/or strawberry powder.
Bake for 12-14 minutes, until just starting to turn golden brown on the bottom edges.
Let cool for 1-2 minutes on the baking sheet on a cooling rack, before moving the cookies themselves onto the rack.
Let cool completely before storing in an airtight container.
🧐 Recipe FAQs for Strawberry Shortbread Cookies
Yes! These freeze dried strawberry cookies are perfect for make-ahead. Make the cookie dough up to 3 days in advance and keep the unbaked cookie logs in the refrigerator until you’re ready.
Or, freeze the unbaked cookie logs for up to 3 months. Defrost in the refrigerator before slicing and baking. And, of course, since these are shortbread cookies, they keep well after baking as well. Just keep in an airtight container, and they will stay crisp and delicious for over a week!
Many shortbread recipes call for powdered sugar. That creates a softer texture and a more tender cookie. Granulated sugar, on the other hand, makes them more crisp. For this recipe, I prefer the granulated sugar, but if you prefer a soft shortbread cookie, use powdered sugar instead.
Yes, chilling your shortbread cookie dough logs before baking will help the cookies keep their shape when baked.
👩🍳 Expert Tips
In our opinion, these cookies with freeze-dried strawberries taste even better if you make the cookie dough a day before baking and then bake the cookies a day before serving. That helps bring out all the delicious flavor in these strawberry butter cookies.
This strawberry cookie recipe can be easily doubled if you want to make a big batch. Remember, you can always bake some right away and then freeze a cookie log for future cravings.
You will need more than one cookie sheet for this recipe if you want to make all of the cookies at once. If so, put one baking sheet on the top oven rack and one on the bottom. Then switch them halfway through the bake time, rotating the sheets back to front while you’re in there.
The best way to slice shortbread cookie dough is with a large serrated knife, like a bread knife. We love this Victorinox Swiss Army Bread Knife if you’re looking to upgrade your knife collection.
Want to put a glaze on these cookies? These would be delicious with the powdered sugar glaze from my Puff Pastry Cinnamon Rolls recipe.
If you are looking for other recipes to celebrate Valentine's Day, why not try these Valentine's Day Muddy Buddies or these Red Velvet Sugar Cookies as well? Then pair them with a Skinny Chocolate Martini, perfect for a Valentine's or Galentine's celebration. And for your main course? Check out this roundup of the Best Valentine's Day Pasta Dishes.
Need more freeze dried strawberry recipes? Besides snacking on dried strawberries, we love adding them to granola and using them in other desserts as well. Check out some of these delicious recipes:
- Strawberry Peanut Butter Granola
- Valentine Strawberry Cream Rice Krispies
- Strawberry Milk Tea
- Low-Carb Granola
Other Delicious Cookie Recipes
We love cookies around here. (And actually dessert recipes of all kinds TBH.) If you love berries in your cookies, try our White Chocolate Raspberry Cookies next. Or see these top recipes:
If you try this Strawberry Shortbread Cookie recipe, we would love to hear from you! Please rate this recipe and leave a comment below—your feedback is invaluable to us.
And please follow along on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook or subscribe to our newsletter. We’d love to inspire you with more delicious, healthy, and seasonal recipes!
📖 Recipe
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Strawberry Shortbread Cookies
Equipment
Ingredients
- ½ cup freeze-dried strawberries (.5 ounces), plus more for garnish
- ¾ cup unsalted butter softened (12 tablespoons)
- ¾ cup granulated sugar (5.8 ounces)
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour spooned and leveled (6.3 ounces)
- 1 egg white to garnish, optional
- Sparkling sugar to garnish, optional
Instructions
- Chop freeze-dried strawberries into small pieces.
- Cream together butter, sugar, strawberries, salt, and vanilla with a mixer until smooth.
- Add the flour, and combine just until incorporated, scraping down the mixer bowl as necessary.
- Scrape the dough onto a sheet of parchment paper, and use your hands to form the dough into one or two logs that are 1 ½ inches in diameter.
- Wrap the logs in the parchment paper, then twist both sides to close tightly.
- Chill in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours, and preferably 24 hours.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Unwrap log, and cut into slices slightly thinner than ½ inch.
- Place shortbread slices on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet, with at least an inch of space between cookies.
- Crush a few dried strawberries in a plastic baggie using a meat mallet, until you have strawberry powder.
- Paint half of each cookie with the egg white, and sprinkle with sparkling sugar and/or strawberry powder.
- Bake for 12-14 minutes, until just starting to turn golden brown on the bottom edges.
- Let cool for 1-2 minutes on the baking sheet on a cooling rack, before moving the cookies themselves onto the rack.
- Let cool completely before storing.
Notes
Make the cookie dough up to 3 days in advance and keep the unbaked cookie logs in the refrigerator until you’re ready. Or, freeze the unbaked cookie logs for up to 3 months. Defrost in the refrigerator before slicing and baking. And, of course, since these are shortbread cookies, they keep well after baking as well. Just keep in an airtight container, and they will stay crisp and delicious for over a week! Recipe Tips:
This strawberry cookie recipe can be easily doubled if you want to make a big batch. Remember, you can always bake some right away and then freeze a cookie log for future cravings. The best way to slice shortbread cookie dough is with a large serrated knife, like a bread knife. We love this Victorinox Swiss Army Bread Knife if you’re looking to upgrade your knife collection.
Nutrition
Instagram Users: Now that you've made this Strawberry Cookie recipe, tag us @vanillabeancuisine or #vanillabeancuisine because we’d love to see your results!
More About Molly
Cooking healthy(ish) meals with seasonal ingredients is my passion. Trained as a French pastry chef, I spent over 10 years as a personal chef. Here you'll find well-tested recipes that you and your family will love!
Martha Belviso says
under "nutritional Info " you state 0 grams sugar....your recipe has 3/4 cup of sugar in it
Molly Pisula says
Hi there! The amount of sugar is actually after the word, not before. The nutrition information shows 0g fiber and 10g sugar (for 2 cookies). It's not the easiest to read, I know!