The BEST No Chill Strawberry Sugar Cookie

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Updated January 22, 2023

First updated recipe for 2023 and its been updated to a NO CHILL recipe!! Eeeeek! And yes I know that claiming it the BEST might be a bit of a stretch but hey, when I’m excited to share a good recipe I just take the plunge with it.

Also, this is a big deal for me because I have very little patience for chilling dough so to be able to omit that part entirely is a huge bonus. We have more than a few changes from the previous version so please read through the entire blog post to get all caught up! If you are new-ish to making roll out recipes than I recommend beginning HERE to familiarize yourself with what I recommend.

This year I have a goal to update all my recipes to include more process photos and/or videos. As I began with this one the task suddenly seemed much more daunting than I had anticipated. I don’t think many people realize the amount of EFFORT that goes into just one blog post – it’s tremendous. So I’ve given myself a more realistic goal and am now striving to update as much as I can as I am able.

For this recipe I wanted to explore the option of chill vs. no chill, and if I really even needed to chill the dough. Turns out I didn’t (whew!). But I did want to do a bit more testing on the original version and try to pump out that strawberry flavor without having to default to an imitation extract. It is a bit tricky because too much freeze dried strawberry can result in almost a gummy texture, but not enough leaves the strawberry flavor lackluster. I think I found a good solution – using whole pieces of freeze dried strawberries and grinding then down just barely. The result? Part strawberry powder and part strawberry chunks that help give it bursts of strawberry flavor. Oh la la!

I also really wanted to decorate in a way that would be easy for bakers of any level to achieve. I recently found Love and Oil color block cookies and WOW! I was blown away at the simplicity but beautiful cookies achieved. Inspired by these beautiful cookies is how I choose to decorate this new strawberry cookie recipe. I used white chocolate and colored using Color Mills pink and red toned colors. You can of course choose any color/s you’d like to decorate as you wish!

The Breakdown

Butter: the key to your unsalted butter is allowing it to become just warm enough that you can press a finger into it and it just dents in slightly. You don’t want it to smash too far in because then your butter is too soft, but you want it pliable enough to be able to use and cohere to the other ingredients without issue.

Whole Freeze Dried Strawberries: we are sticking with whole freeze dried strawberries on this recipe, not the freeze dried powder. The store bought freeze dried strawberry powder was…underwhelming in my opinion. Now, if you have freeze dried strawberry powder already then I’d recommend using that but adding in about ½ tsp of imitation strawberry extract.

Red Gel Food Coloring: I highly recommend using just one drop of red food coloring because without it your cookies will have a very lightish pink to them…and honestly look like spam. Brighten up that color with just one drop to make them a bit more pinkish.

Bleached AP Flour: I read an article recently about the difference between bleached vs. unbleached ap flour. Interestingly I’m finding the recommendations for cookies leaning towards bleached ap flour. In this recipe I used Gold’s Bleached AP flour since it is a market staple and easy to access.

No Chill: this is meant to be a no chill recipe, but if you see that your butter is much softer than described above, or your dough isn’t as firm, then I do recommend cutting your shapes, placing on a baking sheet and covering with shrink film. Place in the refrigerator for at least 1 – 2 hours to firm up and then follow the recipe. You may need to bake for an extra 1 or 2 minutes which will be dependent upon the thickness of your cookies. Be flexible and watch the cookies as they bake.

Strawberry Sugar Cookie

Roll out sugar cookies bursting with strawberry flavor

Print Pin Rate

Course: Dessert, Snack

Cuisine: American

Keyword: strawberry, strawberry cookies, strawberry sugar cookies

Prep Time: 20 minutes minutes

Cook Time: 10 minutes minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes minutes

Servings: 18 cookies

Author: Sharon Alvarenga

Equipment

• 1 stand mixer
• 1 blender or food processor
• 1 rubber or silicone spatula
• 2 parchment paper
• 1 Rolling Pin with measuring guides
• 1 cooling rack

Ingredients

• 3 cup bleached all purpose flour 390 g
• 1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature 220 g
• ¾ cup sugar 150 g
• 1 ea large egg, room temperature
• 2 cup whole freeze dried strawberries 56 g
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp fine sea salt
• 1 drop red food coloring optional but recommended

Instructions

Preparing Dough

• Preheat oven to 350 °F.
• In a stand mixer bowl, add unsalted butter, sugar and salt. Mix with a paddle attachment on high for at least 2 to 3 minutes, or until creamed. Scrape down using spatula as needed to ensure all is mixed well.
  1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature, ¾ cup sugar, ½ tsp fine sea salt
• Scrape down bowl and add egg. Mix on medium low until egg is well incorporated. Scrape down bowl as needed to ensure egg mixes in well.
  1 ea large egg, room temperature
• Add whole freeze dried strawberries to blender and pulse for only a few seconds – just enough to have powder but still a bit of larger strawberry pieces. Add all to the wet mixture and the one drop of red food gel coloring. Blend on low until incorporated. Scrape down bowl as needed.
  2 cup whole freeze dried strawberries, 1 drop red food coloring
• In a separate bowl combine flour and salt and mix well. Add to wet mixture and mix on low until most of the flour has been incorporated. Turn to medium low and mix until dough begins to pull together on the paddle attachment. You will need to scrape down the bowl to ensure all the dough mixes together well.
  3 cup bleached all purpose flour, 1 tsp baking powder

Rolling Out Dough

• Roll dough out between two pieces of parchment paper to desired thickness.
• Prepare baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mat.
• Cut desired shapes and place on baking sheet at least 1" apart.

Baking Cookies

• Bake cookies between 8 – 10 minutes (I baked ?" for 10 minutes, and ¼" at 8 minutes. Adjust bake time as necessary depending on the thickness of your cookie). Watch for very light browning along edges and pull out of oven once you see that.
• Remove from oven and place on wire rack to allow to cool completely.

Notes

• I recommend using whole freeze dried strawberries vs. powdered freeze dried strawberries. I tested both and I found a higher strawberry flavor when using the whole pieces. I also recommend now grinding them down to a fine powder. Grind down to half powder and half small bits of strawberry – you will have a higher strawberry flavor with this.
• Butter should not be too soft prior to use. It should be cool – where if you press a finger into it it slightly indents but doesn’t give entirely. Allowing the butter to not be too much at room temperature is key to the no chill in this recipe. If your butter has gotten too soft just place dough in the refrigerator prior to baking for at least 1 – 2 hours.
• For best results I highly recommend using a kitchen scale for optimal results.