Cherry Pie Cookies are made with a simple 5-ingredient dough, require no chill time, and are the most festive cookie! The cookie base is buttery and soft, and its complemented perfectly by the sweet cherry pie filling. Drizzle a little of white or milk chocolate on top, and wonder where these cookies have been all your life!
I’ve been making these cookies every Christmas for yearsss and this is it! The year that I was bound and determined to finally get them up on the blog. These always disappear fast when I make them, so making a double batch is highlyy recommended. They’re so easy to make, too!
First up, we’re mixing together softened butter, flour, salt, vanilla, and powdered sugar in a large mixing bowl. After you start to mix it with an electric mixer, it’ll look like this and you’ll wonder how in the world it’ll ever turn into a proper cookie dough.
This is a dough that you really need to work with your (clean!) hands to help it come together. So after mixing it until it looks like the photo above, get in there with your hands. Keep mixing until it’s not crumbly anymore. In the photo below, we’re almost there but not quite!
And, here’s what the dough will look like once it’s ready! It’ll still be a tad crumbly in spots, but that’s fine. Next, you’ll roll small balls and pop them onto a lined baking sheet.
Press an indent into each cookie ball with your fingers, and then fill the indents with cherry pie filling! I find that 2-3 cherries is about all you can fit into these, since they are a smaller cookie. (Don’t worry if they look small to you here – they’ll expand a bit in the oven.)
And, voila! The most beautiful little cookies. Sometimes, if I could only fit 2 cherries into a cookie, I find that after baking there’s a bit more room and I’ll squeeze an extra cherry in. Let the cookies cool for a few minutes on a baking sheet (they’ll be a bit soft and delicate at first), and then transfer to a cooling rack to finish cooling.
Now, for the finishing touch! Decorate these with a drizzle of chocolate. Any chocolate you like works! You can use white, milk, dark, or semi-sweet. I prefer to drizzle half of my cherry pie cookies with white chocolate, and the other half with milk chocolate. You might also notice there are a few little cracks in the cookies here and there – that’s totally normal! Don’t fret if that happens – it will always happen a bit with this recipe. My trick for reducing the amount of cracks in the baked cookies is to make sure you roll the dough balls really well, to keep them as smooth as possible.
I hope you love these cookies as much as we do! It’s the perfect holiday cookie in my opinion – we’ve got bright color, fresh flavor, some chocolate, AND there’s no chill time for the dough. This recipe makes a fairly small batch of cookies, so you can just make a batch for yourself, or you can double it and add these to any holiday cookie plates you might be dropping off for friends + family this year.
Happy cookie baking!
Cherry Pie Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup salted butter, softened 2 sticks, or 16 tbsp
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup powdered sugar
- pinch salt
- 1 can cherry pie filling
- 4 ounces milk or white chocolate, for decorating
Instructions
- Prep: Make sure your butter has been softened at room temperature. Preheat your oven to 325 degrees F (yes, 325 not 350!). Line a few baking sheets with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.
- Make the Cookie Dough: Cream the buter in a large mixing bowl with an electric mixer until nice and creamy. Mix in the vanilla until just incorporated. Add the flour, powdered sugar, and pinch of salt and begin to mix. The mixture will be VERY crumbly and will seem dry, and you will wonder how it's going to form cookie dough (see photos above). This is normal. After you've reached that dry crumbly stage, it's time to get in there with (clean!) hands and continue mixing the dough. Mix it with your hands until you're able to form the dough into a ball that holds together. If it's a tad crumbly in a few spots, that's fine. (Again, see photos above in the blog post for how this will all look). Roll the dough into small-ish balls (about 1 tbsp or 35 grams). Place balls a few inches apart on your prepared cookie sheets, and use your thumb to make an indent in each one. (If the dough cracks a bit around the edges when you make the indent, don't fret - that's normal. Try to roll the balls really smooth before indenting them to limit this.) Spoon 2-3 cherries from the cherry pie filling into each indent.
- Bake: There's no dough chilling in this recipe - hip hip hooray! Bake the cookies for 12-14 minutes. (I usually have to do the full 14). The cookies will be soft right out of the oven, so let them cool about 10 minutes on the baking sheet before transferring to a cooling rack.
- Decorate: Drizzle the cookies with melted white chocolate, milk chocolate, or any other kind of chocolate you like!
- Serve + Store: Enjoy immediately! Let cookies sit out at room temp for a bit so the chocolate can set up, then store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a week.
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FrankieJane says
This is the first recipe for cookies that I ever made that actually made exactly the number of cookies it said it made … so YAY … my oven which is usually dead on took a full 16 minutes to cook these … I also found that if you thumbprint them right after rolling into a ball they did not crack …these are delicious and am looking forward to sharing them later today … and I managed to drag them off my pan onto the cooling rack leaving them on the parchment paper and drizzled with chocolate there was one less thing to cleanup. Thanks for the wonderful recipe!
Stephanie Simmons says
So glad you loved these cookies! Thanks for taking the time to leave that kind comment. 🙂 Happy baking!
Rita says
I love the way you explained and had pics of every step.my recepy is similar to yours but use regular sugar .next time I will follow yours .I also use different jams on them but I will certainly try them with the cherries and chocolate. They look much prettier.
Stephanie Simmons says
Thanks, Rita! Glad you found the post helpful. 🙂 Happy New Year!
Jennifer says
I made these this morning for our neighbors. The dough was crumbly but it does come together with ease . I had no cracks in mine which was surprising , I did bake mine as well for the full 14 minutes . They are so good , I’ll definitely be keeping them on my baking rotation.