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These Christmas Cheesecake Cookies are creamy and tender, with just a hint of peppermint. The red, white and green swirls are sure to make them Santa’s favorite cookie and the star of your Christmas cookie exchange!
You’ll definitely find these cookies on our round-up of deliciously quick and easy Christmas treats.
Hey guys! Sam back from The Culinary Compass! I love a festive cookie and couldn’t resist to recreate these Patriotic Cheesecake Cookies with Christmas colors! It was a no-brainer to create these Christmas Cheesecake Cookies with red, white, and green! The best part is the hint of peppermint that really brings in the holiday season.
How to Make Christmas Cheesecake Cookies
The recipe is based off of the viral Cheesecake Cookies that Kristin made, and they’re SO easy to throw together and incredibly delicious. The cream cheese makes them light and fluffy. I’m always excited to make a batch of these yummy Christmas cookies, but never want to share!
The dough comes together quite easy, using just a few ingredients:
- cream cheese
- butter
- sugar
- eggs
- vanilla extract
- flour
- baking powder
Once combined, I recommend refrigerating the dough for 30 minutes or so because it can get a bit sticky. Then comes the fun part – adding color to the Christmas cookies!
Tips for Making Cheesecake Christmas Cookies
- The key to getting the dough to swirl easily without muddying the colors is to chill the dough. I can’t stress that enough! The dough will be sticky and turn brown as soon as you mix colors together if you allow it to come to room temperature. So if you find yourself getting frustrated with how sticky the dough is, throw the dough into the freezer for 5-10 minutes and it’ll be a lot easier to work with!
- I also didn’t want to overwhelm the cookies with too much peppermint so I only included peppermint extract in the green dough. It’s enough to give a hint of peppermint while still allowing the cheesecake flavor to shine through.
- They would probably be delicious dipped in chocolate too if you like that combination! I wanted to leave the swirls showing so I didn’t powder them with powdered sugar, though, that is definitely an option too!
More Festive Christmas Cookies
- Fruit Pizza
- Chocolate Cheesecake Cookies
- Christmas Cookie Pinwheels
- 50+ Festive Christmas Cookies
- Easy Snowball Cookies Recipe (no nuts)
- Red Velvet Cookies
- Chocolate Peppermint Slice and Bake Cookies
- Peppermint Fudge
- Peppermint Cheesecake Brownie Parfaits
- Sugar Cookie Dough Dip
Tools used to make these Christmas cookies:
Silicone Spatula – Perfect for scraping the sides of the bowl.
AirBake Cookie Sheets – Air insulation prevents top sheet from overheating which prevents burning.
Silicone Baking Mat – Your cookies will slide right off of this perfect baking mat, no sticking!
Christmas Cheesecake Cookies
Ingredients
- 8 oz cream cheese room temperature
- 1/2 cup butter room temperature
- 1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- Red and green food coloring
- 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
- Optional: powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats.
- Beat cream cheese and butter together at high speed until fluffy and smooth; 1-2 minutes. Add sugar to the butter mixture and beat until fully incorporated and fluffy; 1-2 minutes. Beat in the eggs and vanilla; 1 minute.
- In a separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and stir just until incorporated. Do not over-mix.
- Separate the dough into three small bowls. Refrigerate for 15 minutes.
- Once chilled, add in food coloring and incorporate into the dough until your desired color is reached. Add the peppermint extract to the dough you’ll be adding the green food coloring to. Dough will still be sticky, but easier to work with! If you find it’s hard to work with, put back in the refrigerator for a few minutes.
- To create a cookie, take ½ tbsp of each color dough into your hands and roll together between the palms of your hands to create the marbling effect of your choice. Be careful to not over incorporate to avoid mixing the colors too much. Repeat for the rest of the dough and place on prepared baking sheets.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 10-11 minutes. Cookies should be light in color, not browned, and just starting to brown on the bottom. *Length of baking time may vary from oven to oven.
- Cool cookies on the baking sheet for a few minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Optional: Dust with powdered sugar!
Notes
- Store in a tightly sealed container for up to a week, or in the freezer for up to 3 months.
- The vanilla smooths out the flavor, but for a more tart, cheesey flavor, add a teaspoon of lemon juice or no extracts at all. The peppermint can also be left out or replaced.
- Do not overbake. This can cause the cookies to come out more dry and biscuit like.
Nutrition
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Be sure to try our original Cheesecake Cookie recipe! They are light and fluffy, creamy and tender! Be sure to read through all the tips and tricks to make the perfect Cheesecake Cookie!
I had such high hopes for this recipe. They just did not turn out. They took double the time to bake and then some were only partly done. The raw flavor was great. The baked flavor was just ok. This said the dough was sticky. But I am wondering if I should have added more flour.
I read the recipe several times before making and read all of the reviews. I thought the cookies were good. I did dip the bottoms in chocolate. I also only made two dishes of dough. I mixed the color in my hand which allowed me to leave white streaks in both the red and green. The dough is VERY STICKY, even after chilling. If you follow the directions, you won’t have any issues. They will make a nice festive addition to my trays. Thank you for the recipe.
Looks great
Thanks for stopping Renae.
These cookies are delicious. My whole family loves them. They are almost all gone before I can serve them for our Christmas party.
LoL! Sounds like it’s time for a double batch. Love the feedback Rita, thanks for stopping by.
These are seriously one of my favorite cookie recipes for the holidays!! They taste AMAZING and I get so many compliments from family and coworkers. Thanks for sharing this!!
Nice! You are so welcome Ashley! Thanks for the awesome feedback.
I wasted so many ingredients on these 🙁 high quality cream cheese, eggs which are currently a small fortune. The white cooked up fine, red and green this nasty mushy mess. My husband wondered if he should be eating them, and was surprised there was cream cheese in them!
Hi Georgia, I’m sorry they didn’t turn out for you. My best guess is the dough was too warm so the colors blended together.
So bad. Worst cookies I have tried. Mushy garbagio do not make unless you want weird mushy cookies and waste all your cream cheese on a nasty.