What is a cream cheese cookie? These are slightly cakey, soft sugar cookie with a slight creamy tang from the cream cheese. I love a good traditional sugar cookie, like my Christmas Sugar Cookies – these are equally good. I wouldn’t call these spiced cream cheese cookies a substitute for regular sugar cookie. Definitely just make both!
Most cookies I prefer to have a chewier texture. These cookies are very light and soft, but full of flavor. I think of these cookies as sort of a blend of a sugar cookie, a snickerdoodle, and a lofthouse cookie.
Make sure not to overbake these spiced cream cheese cookies. You want to take them out of the oven just as they start to brown on the bottom edge, but the tops will still be set but pale. Additionally, I preferred the cookie spread when the dough was left in the refrigerator between batches. Leaving it out won’t dramatically change the texture but the cookies spread slightly less when the dough remained chilled.
Spiced Cream Cheese Cookies Key Ingredients
- Cream Cheese – Cream cheese adds fat and tang to these cookies. It help keeps them soft and adds a subtle flavor.
- Pastry Flour – To insure these cookies were extra soft and light, in lieu of all purpose flour we use a lower protein flour: pastry flour. Cake flour or AP flour with a little cornstarch could probably be substituted but if you can find it, I would just get pastry flour. This is the one I use: Bob’s Red Mill Pastry Flour
- Spices – Cinnamon is obviously our first choice when it comes to a sweet and spicy cookie. I prefer Vietnamese cinnamon which is often considered the strongest variety for my baked goods. Additionally we use allspice and clove to add a little more depth
Ingredients
- 113 g Unsalted butter ½ cup, room temperature
- 113 g Cream Cheese 4 oz, room temperature
- 200 g Granulated sugar 1 cup
- 1 large Egg room temperature
- 1 tsp Vanilla
- 1¼ tsp Cinnamon
- ¾ tsp Allspice
- ¼ tsp Cloves
- 225 g Pastry flour 1⅔ cup
- ½ tsp Baking powder
- 1 tsp Sea salt
- 1 tbsp Powdered sugar for dusting
- ⅛ tsp Cinnamon for dusting
Instructions
- In a medium sized bowl, add flour, salt, and baking powder and whisk together. Set aside.
- In a medium-large bowl or the bowl of your stand mixer with paddle attached, add butter and cream cheese and mix together until creamy and combined.
- Add sugar and cream together ingredients until light and fluffy.
- Mix your egg into the batter, beating for 1-2 minutes.
- Add your spices and stir.
- Add your dry ingredients and mix with a rubber spatula until dough comes together.
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and scoop dough using a 1 tbsp scoop. Scoop dough, then roll into a ball (about 1 inch wide), and place on baking sheet. Repeat until all dough has been rolled into dough balls.
- Cover your baking sheet and chill your dough for at least 1 hour.
- Preheat your oven to 350°F
- Bake your cookies on a parchment lined baking sheet, leaving a few inches between. Cookies will spread but not dramatically. Bake for 10-11 minutes, the bottom edge of the cookie will just be starting to lightly brown.
- Remove from oven and carefully transfer cookies to a cooling rack.
- Once cookies have completely cooled, mix together 1 tbsp of powdered sugar and ⅛ tsp of cinnamon lightly dust your cookies with it.
- Store cookies in an airtight container for 3-5 days. Enjoy!
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