Thick, soft raspberry sugar cookies are stuffed with a creamy raspberry cheesecake filling and drizzled with white chocolate. These cookies are absolutely packed with flavor and can be made ahead & frozen until ready to bake!
Why you’ll love this recipe:
- Raspberry Lemon Sugar Cookie – These are soft, chewy cookies made with a hint of lemon and freeze dried raspberries for plenty of raspberry flavor.
- Raspberry Cheesecake Filling – These cookies are filled with an easy raspberry cream cheese filling, which adds plenty of cheesecake flavor.
- Make Ahead – Both the dough and filling can be prepped ahead to make these cookies even easier! These are sure to become your favorite cookie.
Ingredient Overview
- Butter – I always use salted buter for the best flavor, but feel free to use unsalted butter if you prefer.
- Freeze Dried Raspberries – This can be found with the freeze dried fruit, near the dried fruits, in most grocery stores. Try looking near the breakfast cereal, granola, etc.
- Raspberry Preserves – Use preserves over raspberry jam, as the flavor and texture are much nicer.
- All-purpose flour – Spoon & level your flour for best results. Scooping the measuring cup directly in will lead to too much flour. Or use a scale, and weigh 135 grams of all-purpose flour per cup.
- White Chocolate – White chocolate melts or a chopped bakers bar work the best, but you can melt white chocolate chips in a pinch. Melt gently as white chocolate can seize up easily.
- Cream Cheese – Use the full fat, block style cream cheese.
Ingredient Substitutions:
- Dairy-free – Use your favorite dairy-free butter and cream cheese to make this recipe dairy-free.
How to Make this Recipe Step-by-Step:
Step 1: Make the Cookie Dough. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars together with a stand mixer or hand mixer. Add the eggs, vanilla extract, lemon juice, and lemon zest. Add the dry ingredients last, including the freeze dried raspberries. Scoop into cookie balls 70 grams in size and chill.
Step 2: Make the Cheesecake Filling. In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and raspberry preserves. Freeze into 2 tsp dollops.
Step 3: Stuff & Bake the Cookies. Flatten the cookie dough balls and place a frozen cheesecake dollop in the center. Encase it completely with the cookie dough, roll through granulated sugar, and bake as directed in the recipe card below.
Step 4: Drizzle with White Chocolate. Drizzle the baked, cooled cookies with white chocolate. You can also skip this step if you don’t like white chocolate.
And now you have something even better than copycat subway cookies! There’s no cheesecake element involved in many of the recipes out there – just white chocolate, which does not constitute cheesecake hah – so these are the clear winner over any copycat recipe in my opinion, and I know you’ll love these delicious cookies!
Expert Success Tips:
- Don’t Over Stuff – Using just 2 tsp of the cheesecake filling per cookie may not sound like a ton, but it’s just the right amount so that the cookie can still bake through evenly. If you use more, the cookie may not bake properly.
- Freeze the Cheesecake Filling – Do not try to skip the freezing step – the recipe simply won’t work if you haven’t frozen your dollops of cheesecake filling.
FAQs:
- Can I make these cookies ahead? Yes! The dough and cheesecake filling can each be made ahead. Making each component ahead helps keep this an easy recipe.
- Can I use fresh raspberries? Absolutely not. I tested it a number of times with fresh berries and each test turned out poorly – there’s far too much moisture for them to work in a cookie. I have seen people successfully use frozen raspberries, but I haven’t tested it in this specific cookie recipe. Freeze-dried berries work best for this recipe.
- Are these cookies soft? Yes, these are chewy, soft cookies with a slightly crisp edge. They have the perfect texture!
Recipe Variations:
- White Chocolate – Feel free to omit the white chocolate, if desired.
- Raspberry Glaze – You can drizzle these cookies with a raspberry glaze if desired. Use half a batch of the glaze from this recipe, and add 1-2 tablespoons of ground up freeze dried raspberries or 1-2 tbsp of raspberry preserves.
Serving + Storing this Recipe:
These cookies need to be stored in the fridge due to the cheesecake filling. They’re really good from the fridge – but you can also let them sit out at room temp for 30-60 minutes to warm back up a bit before serving.
Special Tools:
- Cookie Scoop – Use this cookie scoop to make your cookies the size I did. It’s technically an ice cream scoop, but it’s the perfect size for large bakery-style cookies.
- Baking Sheets – These are my favorite cookie sheets!
- Silicone Baking Mat – This is my favorite silicone baking mat. It reduces waste because it’s washable!
More Cookie Recipes to Love:
- Bakery-Style Peanut Butter Chip Chocolate Cookies
- Key Lime Slice & Bake Cookies
- Blueberry Lemon Cookies
- Peanut Butter & Jelly Thumbprint Cookies
- Funfetti Cake Batter Cookies
- Cherry Pie Cookies
- Triple Chocolate Chunk Cookies
- Bakery-Style Monster Cookies
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White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake Cookies
Ingredients
For the Cookies
- 1 cup salted butter, softened at room temperature 16 tbsp or 226 grams
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
- 1 and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp lemon zest
- 3 tbsp lemon juice 40 grams
- 2 and 3/4 cup + 2 tbsp all-purpose flour, spooned & leveled 388 grams
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup freeze dried raspberries, crushed to a powder
- 1/2 cup freeze dried raspberries, in pieces
For the Cheesecake Filling
- 4 ounces cream cheese
- 3 tbsp powdered sugar
- 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 and 1/2 tbsp raspberry preserves
For Finishing
- granulated sugar, for rolling the dough balls
- 3 ounces white chocolate, melted, for drizzling
Instructions
- Prep: Measure your freeze dried raspberries whole, before pulsing them. Pulse your freeze dried raspberries in the food processor until you have a fine powder. Set aside.
- Make the Cookie Dough: In a large bowl, cream the softened butter with an electric mixer on high speed. Add the sugars to the butter mixture and mix until creamed together with the butter, about 1 minute. Add the vanilla and eggs and mix until just combined. Add the lemon juice and zest, and mix until just incorporated. Add the dry ingredients, including the freeze dried raspberry powder, and mix until a dough forms. Fold in the freeze dried raspberry pieces last.
- Chill the Dough: Scoop dough into balls 70 grams in size with a medium cookie scoop, and place in an airtight container to chill for at least 2 hours, or up to 24 hours.Tip: Dough is easier to scoop if you chill it 20-30 minutes first.
- Make the Cheesecake Filling: In a medium bowl, beat together the cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla extract. Add the raspberry preserves last. Scoop dollops about 2 tsp in size onto a wax-paper lined cookie sheet or plate. Freeze for 40 minutes, or until frozen solid.
- Assemble & Bake Cookies: Preheat your oven to 350° F. Line a few baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats. Flatten a cookie dough ball with your palm, and place a frozen cheesecake dollop in the center. Enclose the dough around it, sealing it completely, and roll in granulated sugar. Repeat with all the dough. Once you've done this, the dough balls need to stay in the freezer so the filling doesn't thaw.Place 6 cookies on each of your prepared baking sheets, and bake for 12 to 13 minutes. The tops of the cookies will look a tad underdone and the edges will appear just set. Let cookies cool on the baking sheet for 10-15 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- Serve & Store: Drizzle cookies with white chocolate, if desired, and add a finishing sprinkle of freeze dried raspberries. Enjoy! Store cookies in an airtight container in the fridge for 6-10 days.
- Glaze: You can make a tangy lemon glaze to top these cookies in place of the white chocolate. Add 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp powdered sugar to a small bowl with a little bit of lemon juice, milk, a splash of vanilla, and 1 tbsp of raspberry preserves or freeze dried raspberries. Adjust until you have desired taste and consistency. Drizzle over the cookies.
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