Churro Cheesecake Cookies

At Scott's work they do a cookie bake-off, and Scott's favorite cookie from this year were these. So he asked his co-worker for the recipe, and now I get the pleasure of trying them for myself at home too! And they are delicious! A little fiddle to make because they are a filled cookie, but worth the effort.

Churro Cheesecake Cookies

Ingredients: (makes about 3 dozen small cookies)

Cheesecake Center-

• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 4 Tbl. powdered sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Cookie Base-

• 2 1/4 cups flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. baking soda
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg, room temperature
• 2 tsp. vanilla

Cinnamon Sugar Exterior- (combine these together in a small bowl)

• 2 tsp. cinnamon
• 1/4 cup sugar

Directions: Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Filling-

1. In a mixing bowl, combine the cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla with a hand-mixer until smooth and creamy.
2. Portion out 1 tsp.-sized dollops onto a lined cookie sheet and freeze for 20-30 minutes. Make 36 dollops.
• I like to use my 1 tsp. cookie scoop for this.

Cookie Base-

1. In a large bowl, whisk together flout, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
2. In the bowl of stand-mixer, cream together butter, sugar, and brown sugar until smooth, fluffy, and the mixture has lightened in color (about 3-5 minutes beating on medium speed).
3. Add egg and vanilla to the creamed sugars and blend until just combined. 
4. A third at a time, combine your flour mixture into the creamed sugars just until the flour is mostly combined. Once your last portion of flour has been added, only mix the dough until a smooth, pliable dough forms.

Assembly-

1. Portion out your cookie dough into 1 tbl. portions. Make 36 portions, twelve per lined cookie sheet for a total of three trays.
• Dough can dry out as it sits on the trays waiting to be formed into the stuffed cookies, so cover your tray with plastic wrap or a towel to keep dough moist. Dry dough gets crumbly and can be harder to form around the cheesecake filling.
2. Roll each dough portion into a ball and flatten into a disc. Working one tray at a time, add a frozen portion of cream cheese to each dough disc, putting the rest of the cream cheese back into the freezer until needed.
• It is important to keep the cream cheese mixture frozen so it is easier to work with.
3. Fold the dough disc around the cream cheese to cover and roll back into a ball.
4. Once all the cream cheese portions have been covered in dough and rolled back into balls, roll each ball around in the cinnamon sugar mixture until evenly coated. 
5. Bake at 350 degrees for 12 minutes, or until edges are set and tops appear puffed without browning.
6. Allow cookies to rest on the hot trays for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to finish cooling.

Marsha's Notes:

Here are some pictures of the process.

Cream cheese filling portioned with my cookie scoop and ready to freeze.

Dough balls portioned with my Tbl cookie scoop, then flattened out and ready for cream cheese dollops.

Cream cheese added.

Cream cheese is now encased in the middle of the dough balls.

Rolled in cinnamon sugar.

Just out of the oven with domed tops that will fall when cooling.

All done.