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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
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 just made these. They need at least 25 minutes to bake. The dough was very sticky so used rubber gloves & floured them for each cookie.
I suppose it depends on your oven, but I wouldn’t bake them that long. The cookies can end up dry and more biscuit like.
Made these today. Had issues with sticky dough while balling them like some others. I put the 2 colors together in a bowl and slightly swirled them. I used a cookie scoop dipped in water instead of balling them by hand. Did work better. I did get mixed colors but not like the pictures. I had to increase baking time by at least 4 minutes.
I need help!! My dough isn’t becoming “workable” I left in fridge for 18 min already. Please help need for tomorrow.
Hi Cyd, I’m sorry to hear that you’re having trouble. I would suggest leaving the dough in the fridge longer, up to even an hour or two.
Hello, I made these cookies for my annual Christmas party next weekend. I have to tell you, I was underwhelmed. They just didn’t have any flavor and were time consuming. Now that I have them made and stored, do you have any suggestions as to how I could go about “kicking them up a notch”.
Sprinkle something on them, dip in white chocolate ganach, spritz rum on them. Got any ideas?
They did turn out looking EXACTLY like yours. p.s. not bad cookies, just meh……
Thought you needed to know.
Try topping with powdered sugar, or a drizzle of white chocolate and sprinkles.
Oh my my! Was not a fan of this cookies. My dough was cold I refrigerated it as I went. It was so sticky. And I make different cookies all the time. This dough had me beat. The only thing I can think of is to put powered sugar on ur hands and roll the dough that way. The taste was ok. I can say I tried.
My mom did these. Wonderful color but the middle was doighy. We can’t figure out why. Any ideas?
The cookies are super soft and chewy, but may have needed a little extra baking time.
The recipe calls for 44 cookies but I only want to make 24 cookies (2 dozen). What ingredients would I need to adjust?
Followed the directions Exact. They literally tasted like Nothing. My husband and mother tasted them as well and said the same. Please don’t waste your time with this, make an actual cheesecake recipe.
Thanks for your feedback Bethany. You’re right, if you want cheesecake you should make a cheesecake. These however are cream cheese cookies, not actual cheesecake.
I thought maybe there was too much flour cause if I had to try and guess a flavor for them I’d say flour. I tasted the mixture before adding the egg, it was really good. Then all that flour and whatever else happened along the way… sorry, it was horrible.
Change the title? It literally says “Christmas CHEESECAKE cookies” but besides, there was zero cream cheese flavor ?
They are obviously not going to be the same. And the millions of people (literally, millions) of people who have made the various cheesecake cookie recipes on this site have loved them. Maybe they just aren’t for you, and that’s totally fine. But for the record, you don’t have to be mean when leaving a critique.
How long does the dough need to chill for so that it’s easy to manage?
At least 30 minutes.
These cookies are beautiful, but the dough is extremely difficult to work with. I would double or even triple the chilling time. After the initial chill, roll each color separately into balls. I would then chill again at least 30 minutes or more. Next, I would take 1 of each color and create the swirl. The cookies are cakey, so not flat and chewy. I would add more mint extract, or substitute almond extract.
Followed the recipe exactly, which I thought would be great for a Christmas cookie exchange. Unfortunately, I had the same result as several other commenters, which was that my cookies did not flatten while baking. Nor did they bake all the way through, so the bottoms were over done and the middle was doughy. Mixing in the food coloring was very difficult, even with keeping the dough refrigerated. It was also a much more time consuming recipe than I anticipated based on the ingredients and instructions. Now I have to go buy cookies to take 🙁
I made these for Thanksgiving with gluten free flour and omitted the peppermint. They were fantastic. There were not enough. I should have doubled the recipe. I am going to make them again tonight and for Christmas but this time I’m going to use blue food coloring and the plain. These cookies were awesome. I didn’t put sugar on the top of them, but I’m going to put granulated sugar on them the next time. We’d also like to try these with macadamia nuts. This is a keeper of a recipe. These cookies did not last a day.
Really loved these cookies. Not too sweet. Very easy to make. Substituted measure for measure gluten free flour and orange extract for the peppermint. They turned out great! Thanks!
How do you roll them when the dough is so sticky even when coming straight from the frigorater
Gently and carefully.
They look fabulous Kristin! May I please ask what is the measure when you say 1 cup. Is it 8 oz ?
No, it’s a dry measurement, so a 1-cup measuring cup.
Would be cute for Easter with pale green (or pale yellow) and pink
I made these tonight for our Christmas cookie day, they were so sticky & doughy. Tried freezing dough but as soon as I started balling it, too doughy. Also, they are more like pancakes than cookies. Will not make these again. ?
These look great. Can’t wait to make them and share with friends at the Anderson Moose Lodge and my grandkids. If they get past my husband.lol
I’m going to make the dough a few weeks ahead of baking, and freeze the dough. I’m going to defrost the dough before baking. I’m making these for a cookie swap and I’m having surgery a week before and won’t be able to do the prep work when I need it. I hope the dough holds in the freezer. I made the recipe asa trial run, delicious. I’m thinking of trying to add to food coloring with the wet ingredients, darker than I need as it will lighten with the dry added .
These cookies taste delicious but I have food coloring all over my hands and mine don’t look near as pretty as the picture. I don’t think I’ll make them again. I did freeze the dough and that helped.