30 Minute Soft-Baked Vanilla Cream Cheese Cookies

Hi hi! I am just popping in to share this super easy vanilla cream cheese cookie recipe! These are a really easy twist on my classic vanilla cookie recipe which is one of the top performing recipes on my site, with just a few tweaks!

If you haven't put cream cheese into cookie dough before, you gotta try it.

Cream cheese cookies have the most amazing flavour - the cream cheese adds a slight tang, along with an incredible softness to the cookies.

These cookies can be made in about 30 minutes, and the recipe will give you 24 delicious soft and chewy cream cheese cookies!

If you're after a non cream cheese cookie, check out my Classic Vanilla Cookie recipe!

Important Ingredients in Cream Cheese Cookies and why I used them

The ingredients list here is pretty typical - most things you will see in a vanilla cookie recipe, with the addition of cream cheese. Please note this is not an exhaustive list, I am just calling out some of the ingredients that I use!

• Butter. I usually use unsalted butter in my recipes, but if you only have salted butter on hand, then that works great too - just reduce the amount of salt you use in the recipe.
• Sugar. I use granulated sugar (I often use caster sugar in NZ as it is the closest to the regular sugar in the US) but because we are measuring by weight, sugar is sugar here. I like to use a little extra to roll the cookies in before baking.
• Vanilla. I always use a high quality vanilla bean paste, but if you want to use extract you can use the same amount.
• Egg. Just one, at room temperature, to help hold everything together.
• Cream Cheese. Full fat please, and at room temperature!
• Flour. I use all-purpose (also sometimes called plain flour) for my cookies - the lower protein in it (as opposed to bread flour / high grade flour) helps to give a nice tender texture to the cookies.

What does cream cheese do in the recipe?

Cream Cheese works in a similar way to how adding cream cheese into baking does - it provides an amazing tang and tenderness to the cookie, without adding a ton of extra moisture.

Cream cheese in the cookies makes them soft and chewy, with a really nice texture. They are a bit puffier than something like my vanilla cookies, which are more of a thin and chewy situation. I love them both, and I love having options!

What kind of cream cheese did you use?

This is kind of an important one - not as much as if you were making a cheesecake or something heavily cream cheese based, but you want to use cream cheese that comes in a block.

I know that's annoyingly specific but it is the firmest kind - don't get a 'spreadable' kind or anything like that as they can behave quite differently.

I used Philadelphia cream cheese for these cookies. You want to make sure that it is nice and room temperature along with your butter so that it incorporates nicely into the mix.

How to manipulate a recipe to get soft and thick cookies

I always get a ton of interest about how I recipe test, and this recipe is the perfect example of how I incorporate an ingredient such as cream cheese into an existing cookie, in this case my vanilla cookie.

To get to this point I kept the majority of the ingredients the same, added in some cream cheese, and dropped the butter quantity slightly to account for the cream cheese in the recipe.

I then played around with the baking temperature and if the recipe needed a chill time or if I could get it to work baked straight away (which is usually my preference because I'm impatient).

I then found they were baking up just a touch puffy for my liking, so dropped the baking powder in the recipe and used only baking soda, and found what I consider the perfect cream cheese cookie!

Can Cream Cheese Cookies be made ahead of time?

Yes, these are a great cookie to make ahead of time - I tested both freezing the dough and chilling it, and both work. Usually when I freeze cookie dough I drop the temperature slightly when I am working with frozen dough but I found because these cookies are baked at a slightly lower temperature, you will just need to add on a few minutes to the bake time.

To chill cookie dough:

Scoop out the dough as directed, and roll in the sugar. Place on a parchment paper lined pan or in a lined airtight container and store in the fridge for up to 3 days before baking.

To freeze cookie dough:

Scoop the dough as directed and roll into balls but do not roll in the sugar. Place onto a parchment lined baking sheet (they can be fairly close together), then freeze for about 30 minutes until solid, then transfer into an airtight container and freeze for up to 3 months. When you are ready to bake them, leave them to stand at room temperature for about 10 minutes to get a little sweaty (I can't think of a better word sorry!) and then roll them in sugar and bake - you will need to add 2-3 minutes onto the bake time.

For all my tips and tricks on freezing cookie dough, check out my post: How to freeze cookie dough and bake from frozen

Ideas for finishing cream cheese cookies

I roll these cookies in regular granulated sugar just to give them a slightly sparkly finish but the options are endless here.

You can roll them in sprinkles (super quick and easy way to make a 'festive' cookie), chocolate sprinkles, or a sparkly sanding sugar which would be super yum.

You could also roll them in a cinnamon sugar mixture for a bit of a snickerdoodle cookie vibe too. You do you here!

Why are these cookies baked at a lower temperature?

This is something that I play around with a lot when I am baking cookies - if I want to control the spread of them, I often drop the oven temperature slightly to give them more of a chance to spread.

When a cookie bakes, the outside sets at a certain point and the cookie will stop spreading. There are obviously other factors at play here too such as how much butter is in the recipe, if the dough is cold or warm etc, what kind of sugar you have used, but in this case, I found that I got the optimal spread at a slightly lower temperature (165°c / 330°f) than the 'regular' 180°c / 350°f.

Frequently Asked Questions

What tools and equipment do you use?
You can find a full list of the tools and equipment I use on my products page

Which cookie scoop did you use?
I use a #40 cookie scoop (fun fact, the number is to do with how many scoops are in a pint). I think it holds about 1.5 Tbsp. Alternatively you can weigh out the cookie dough balls - shoot for about 35g per ball.

How do you store cream cheese cookies?
Store these cookies at room temperature in an airtight container for up to a week.