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Cherry Cheesecake Cookies

4.00 Mitt(s) 5 Rating(s)5 votes, average: 4.00 out of 55 votes, average: 4.00 out of 55 votes, average: 4.00 out of 55 votes, average: 4.00 out of 55 votes, average: 4.00 out of 5

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Level: Easy

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Description

Love cookies? Love cherries? Love cheesecake? You gotta try these delights! Perfect for your Valentine.

Ingredients

  • 3-½ cups All-purpose Flour
  • 2 teaspoons Baking Powder
  • 1 teaspoon Salt
  • 2-½ sticks Butter, Softened
  • 2 packages Cream Cheese (8 Oz Packages Softened)
  • 1-½ cup Sugar
  • 2 whole Large Eggs
  • 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
  • 2 cups Graham Cracker Crumbs (See Note)
  • 3 cans (21 Oz. Can) Cherry Pie Filling, Drained

Preparation

A dear friend made these and shared her recipe with me a couple of Christmases ago. They are perfect for Valentine’s day too. America’s Taste Kitchen recently posted this recipe in their Holiday magazine. So I am not sure who gets the credit for the original recipe, but it is just too good not to share. Bet these would be good with blueberry filling too!

Combine flour, baking powder, and salt in a bowl. With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, beat cream cheese, butter, and sugar until smooth and creamy, about 2 minutes. Add eggs and vanilla and mix until incorporated. Reduce speed to low, add flour mixture, and mix until just combined. Refrigerate dough until firm, at least 30 minutes.

Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 350 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper. Place graham cracker crumbs in a shallow dish.

Roll dough into 1 ½ inch balls, then roll in crumbs. Place balls 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Using a tablespoon measure, make indentation in the center of each ball. Place 3 cherries in each dimple. Bake until golden around the edges, about 12 to 14 minutes, switching and rotating sheets halfway through baking. Cool for 5 minutes on the sheets, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. (Cookies can be stored in an airtight container for 2 days.)

Note: to make graham cracker crumbs, process 8 whole graham crackers in a food processor until finely ground.

Makes 4 dozen cookies.

17 Comments

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Nela on 1.22.2011

They were great-tasting cookies! Good work! :D

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Taracooks on 1.18.2011

A dear friend makes these and gave me her permission to share here and on my own blog in 2009. It would be interesting to know when America’s Test Kitchen first published theirs. Guess Solomon was right – There’s nothing new under the sun!

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passbro on 12.23.2010

Shouldn’t you give the source for this recipe? I saw this, then a few days later bought the America’s Test Kitchen Holiday Baking magazine, and there it was, in all its glory!

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kuparstwn on 12.17.2010

Should the cream cheese be softened/room temp?

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yardsailor on 12.3.2010

These are a must!! Thanks for sharing.

5 Reviews

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krypto on 2.5.2012

I have to agree with Nancy Lee. The cookies were not sweet enough and the texture was a little odd. I only used two cans of pie filling.

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cathymurry on 12.23.2011

I thought these were great! I probably used 2 cans of cherry pie filling instead of 3 – I guess it really depends on the brand of pie filing you use and how “wet” it is. I let my cherries drain for quite awhile before adding them to the cookies and had no problem with the pie filling spilling over. I agree that they are not overly sweet but original New York style cheesecake is not sweet either. So I found these to be the perfect combo of richness with a bit of sweet and a bit of tartness for the cherries. I like that they are a little slice of cherry cheesecake! I also put the dough in the fridge while one batch was in the oven. Thanks for sharing!

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Nancy Lee on 11.9.2011

I realize this recipe has gotten rave reviews and I hesitated to post a not-so-favorable review but since not everyone’s “taste” is the same, I thought I should. First, of all these are a more “pricey” cookie to make with the amount of cream cheese, butter and cherry pie filling and I did not feel that they reflected that. I did purchase the cherry filling (21oz) at ALDI’s and only used 2 cans. The cookie component of this cookie is more I would say biscuit/cake like, then dense and shortbread like. It is a light, not sweet cookie. Think kind of a straweberry shortcake combo taste. I found that although I chilled the dough for two hours that when I went to make the indentation with the tablespoon I needed to dip it back in the graham cracker crumbs to keep it from sticking. My cherry pie filling “gel” seemed to seep over the cookie as well when cooking, and were not “neat and tidy” like the picture. Although I wouldn’t call myself a master baker I do bake weekly, and of the nine people that tasted them, only two thought they were really good the other 7 were “meh” about them. If you are expecting a rich cheesecake cookie, this is not the recipe. If you want light and not sweet, this fits the bill.

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melissarose on 3.9.2011

These are so good. I am a lover of cheesecake and sour pie cherries. these were simple and sooo good. Thanks for posting this great recipe, for sure going down as one of my top 5.

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Sondra on 7.9.2010

These are delicious. I made them for a charity bake sale at work. They were a big hit and had several requests for the recipe. I will be making these again.

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