Stuffed cream cheese cookies had quickly become an addiction of mine when I made those cranberry bliss cookies a while ago. The tender, soft, buttery cookie just melts in your mouth, while it is contrasted with the creamy, tangy filling. So it got me thinking, what other flavors could I go for with this cream cheese cookie recipe as a baseline? One of the first things I ate when I finally finished my 2-month sugar fast was a decadent slice of red velvet cake from Sweet Red Peach. The cake was fluffy yet moist, while the cream cheese frosting was sweet, silky, and smooth, and just made me want to inhale a bucketful of it. And that’s when the idea dawned on me to go the red velvet route with these stuffed cream cheese cookies! Since I’ve already made a variation of these in the form of my Cranberry Bliss cookies, I was able to take that as a template, and revise it to be a red velvet cake-inspired version instead! Just to differentiate the two a bit more, I did roll these little beans in powdered sugar for that crinkle cookie aesthetic(and since cream cheese frosting is usually made with that anyways). The end result were these tender, melt-in-the-mouth cookies stuffed with a white chocolate-cream cheese filling that also just melts as you bite it!

From a technical standpoint, this recipe does take some time to make. You will need to freeze the cream cheese filling separately before rolling it into the red velvet cookie dough, rolling that into confectioner’s sugar, then baking it all together. The cream cheese filling itself requires you to melt the white chocolate or cream cheese chips, then mix that into cream cheese, and freeze that in little dollops. While those are freezing solid, the dough itself will then need to be made. With red velvet anything, I prefer to use a high quality cocoa powder(I used a dutch-processed for more of an intense chocolate flavor), and just enough red food coloring to tint the cookies an earthier red. The cookie dough itself is super easy to make overall, so long as you have softened butter, and you mix your cream cheese well. For filling these cookies, that is where you do have to work with some speed. Work quickly to get the cream cheese filling(I like piping it across multiple sheet trays so I can work on these batches in sets) around the cookie dough, then freeze those stuffed cookie balls while you work on the next set. Then once you have everything stuffed, roll each cookie ball into the sugar before baking. Before you know it, you will have these highly addictive red velvet cookies!

Makes roughly 20 cookies:
For the cream cheese filling:
4oz cream cheese
1oz cream cheese chips(can substitute with white chocolate or yogurt chips); melted
1 tsp vanilla extract
a pinch of salt

In a bowl, beat the cream cheese until soft. Fold into that the other ingredients, mixing until smooth. Transfer to a piping bag. Pipe the filling into roughly 1/4 inch sized dollops on a lined sheet tray and freeze solid, roughly 1 hour.

For the dough:
4oz cream cheese
2oz unsalted butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 egg white
2 drops red food coloring
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp black cacao powder
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
a pinch of salt
Confectioner’s sugar

In a bowl, cream together the cream cheese, butter, sugar, and vanilla until softened and combined. Fold into that the egg white and red food coloring first. In another bowl, mix together your flour, cacao powder, baking powder, soda, and salt. Then fold that into the butter-cream cheese bowl to form your cookie dough. Scoop the dough into 1 tbsp-sized balls and press into those the frozen cream cheese fillings, rolling the dough around the fillings. Roll the dough balls into the sugar and place onto lined sheet trays, spacing them 1 inch apart. Bake at 350 degrees F for 8 minutes.