Roll Out Strawberry Sugar Cookie Recipe With Real Strawberry

Summer is in full swing and I am all about the strawberries. These roll out strawberry sugar cookies are absolutely amazing this time of year.

Using real freeze dried strawberries, these strawberry sugar cookies topped with strawberry buttercream are packed full of flavor. No artificial strawberry over here.

I’ve also decided not to add any artificial color to the cookies or frosting. You can, of course, add some pink gel food dye to enhance the color.

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How to Make The Best Roll Out Strawberry Sugar Cookies

The Strawberry Sugar Cookie Recipe

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Also, take out one cup of unsalted butter from the refrigerator and set this aside for the buttercream frosting recipe.

DO NOT USE THE SOFT UNSALTED BUTTER FOR THE COOKIES. IT IS FOR THE FROSTING. I just wanted to make that clear.

Grab a medium sized mixing bowl and mix together three cups of flour, two teaspoons of baking powder, and a half cup of powdered freeze-dried strawberries. Remember, when measuring flour, do the spoon & scrape method.

*What’s the spoon & scrape method? Simply use a spoon to spoon flour into your measuring cup. Once you have a mound at the top, take a knife and scrape it over the top of the measuring cup. Obviously don’t scrape the excess into your mixing bowl.

Alternatively, use a kitchen scale and measure out 384 grams of flour.

*I am using finely powdered freeze-dried strawberries. If you prefer, you can purchase freeze dried strawberries and pulverize them yourself to obtain a powder. Do keep in mind, using whole/sliced freeze dried strawberries will result in seeds being in the cookies.

Grab your stand mixer and attach the paddle attachment. In the stand mixer, add in one cup (or two sticks) of COLD salted butter. By cold, I mean refrigerated and not at room temperature.

You can chop the butter up into cubes before adding it into the stand if you want to speed up the process and reduce the chance of your mixer kicking the butter out onto the floor.

To the butter, cubed or not, add in one cup of granulated white sugar. Cream the butter and sugar together on medium speed. You will know it’s done when you can’t see any butter lumps.

Next up is adding one egg and up to one tablespoon of vanilla extract to the mixer. If you’re unsure on how much vanilla you like, a safe starting place is 1.5 teaspoons.

Mix the egg and extract in the stand mixer until the egg is just combined. We don’t want to introduce too much heat.

Lastly, spoon in some of the dry ingredients and mix until it’s not a powdery mess. Continue adding in the dry ingredients until it’s all been added.

The dough will pull away from the sides when it is ready. It will appear dry at first but once the freeze-dried strawberries soak in some of the liquid, it will become just-right. Keep mixing until it is formed into a ball.

Roll out the cookie dough on a floured surface to 3/8″ thick. I prefer a thicker cookie because buttercream frosting can be overpowering if the cookie is too thin.

I use this Joseph-Joseph rolling pin to ensure my cookies are even and 3/8″ thick. I highly recommend it! It’s one of my favorite kitchen tools.

Use a strawberry cookie cutter to cut out the cookies.

Place no more than 6 cookies on a standard sized cookie sheet. I find this strawberry sugar cookie recipe to work wonders on this cookie sheet and a silicone mat.

I like to put this cookie sheet into the freezer for about five minutes before baking. If you don’t have any concerns over spread, you can skip this step.

Bake for 7-10 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit, or until the middle of the cookie doesn’t look wet. Sometimes it forms a bit of a bump on the top of the cookie which also means they are done.

I always err on underbaking than overbaking. The cookies will continue to cook a bit as they cool on the baking sheet. The egg & flour should be cooked enough for safe eating, assuming the cookies didn’t look wet in appearance anymore.

Allow the cookies to cool on the sheet for at least 5 minutes, then use a thin spatula to move them to a piece of parchment paper. Roll out the next set of 6 cookies and repeat this process until all the dough is used.

To take these soon-to-be buttercream cookies OUT OF THIS WORLD, put your just-baked-but-cooled cookies into an airtight container and then freeze them while you make the buttercream frosting.

Freezing the cookies for a bit seals in moisture so you have amazingly soft cookies that almost melt in your mouth. Just heavenly!

I learned this trick when making banana bread back in the day and it applies to these sugar cookies as well. Best hack ever.

The Strawberry Buttercream Frosting Recipe

Remember the cup of unsalted butter you took out at the beginning of this? Check to see if it is at room temperature yet. To do this, simply press your finger into the butter. If it creates an indentation easily, the butter is ready.

Wash & dry the bowl from the stand mixer since you just made the cookies in it. Now, add in the cup of room temperature unsalted butter.

*If you only use salted butter, you can use salted butter. The cookie will be less sweet but will still be delicious.

Using the paddle attachment (make sure it’s clean from the cookie dough), cream the butter on medium-high until it is lighter in color. Make sure all of the lumps are gone, too.

Turn off the stand mixer and add in a half cup of powdered freeze-dried strawberries and four cups of powdered confectioner’s sugar. Four cups is a lot, yes. However, I promise the flavors will all balance out. And remember? We made thick sugar cookies.

With the four cups of powdered sugar, add in at least one and a half teaspoons of vanilla extract. Just like the cookies, I tend to measure the vanilla extract from the heart and it may be around a tablespoon sometimes.

Add in one tablespoon of milk.

Cover the stand mixer with a clean towel or a paper towel and mix on low/stir. Once the frosting is coming together, remove the towel. Add in one more tablespoon of milk, still keeping the mixer on low speed. If the frosting is thicker than a creamy peanut butter consistency, continue adding in more milk, one tablespoon at a time.

Do not turn the mixer higher than low. If needed, use a rubber spatula to stir the frosting. Overmixing buttercream can cause air bubbles. If you do overmix, here’s a post on how to fix it. I promise it’s not terribly hard to fix, but, as always, prevention is better.

If you want to color your buttercream frosting for the buttercream cookies, now is the time to add in the gel food dye. DO NOT USE LIQUID DYE. I repeat, do not use liquid dye.

Liquid dye will not be strong enough for thick buttercream frosting.

Here is my favorite gel food dye brand and recommended strawberry color.

You can add in the dye while mixing on low or using a rubber spatula.

How to Decorate the Strawberry Sugar Cookies

Take the cookies out of the freezer & lay them all out on a large piece of parchment paper.

If Using a Piping Bag:

Add the prepared buttercream frosting into a piping bag fitted with a coupler. Add only about a cup of frosting at a time. If the piping bag is too full, the bag may burst, or worse, your hand will hate you for making these cookies.

Store the leftover frosting in the mixing bowl with a piece of plastic wrap over it.

Attach a round decorating tip, such as a Wilton tip #5, to the piping bag and outline and fill in the strawberry cookie minus the leaf area.

Attach a leaf tip to the piping bag to pipe the leaves at the top of the strawberry cookie.

If Using a Knife:

These strawberry sugar cookies can be easily decorated with a knife. Place some frosting onto the cookies with a butter knife or palette knife and spread it across the surface of the cookie.

By the way, if you want to learn how to decorate buttercream sugar cookies using piping bags, check out my online beginner cookie decorating class! It’s the best place to start.

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