Strawberries & Cream Cookie Bars

Strawberries and cream cookie bars are a taste of spring in a fabulous cookie. Sweet strawberry pieces, rich white chocolate morsels, and graham cracker pieces make this unique recipe a delight. The cookie dough starts off like the best chocolate chip cookie and gets an exciting twist with some morsels and more by Toll House. Chewy strawberry bits and creamy white chocolate are sprinkled throughout these soft buttery cookie squares.

What I love about these cookies is that bar cookie are so much easier than drop cookies. Spread this easy strawberry and cream dough into baking and in one batch they are all baked up and ready to cut into yummy dessert squares. If you love blondies, gooey cookies, white chocolate, or anything with fruit - run, do not walk - to make these cookie bars.

These cookies are great to make any time of year, but especially in spring. When strawberries are in season, craving them in and on everything around my house sure it's a thing. These golden-brown bar cookies are packed with rich white chocolate chips and bright red strawberry pieces. They are so pretty and just scream spring. The red and white coloring also makes these cookie bars festive for Christmas.

If you love spring or summer sweet treats or strawberries, you may love one of these other recipes. A light and fluffy Fresh Strawberry Mousse Parfait is an easy no-bake dessert that is fun to make with your kids. For the 4th of July, make some Red, White, & Blue Strawberries for another white chocolate delight. Last but not least, when peaches come into season, grab them while you can. The ultimate summer dessert is this Old-Fashioned Peach & Strawberry Cobbler.

Jump to:

• Ingredients
• Instructions
• How Long to Bake Cookie Bars
• How To Cut Cookies in Squares
• Substitutions
• Equipment
• Storage
• Strawberries & Cream Cookie Bars

Ingredients

To make strawberries and cream cookie bars, you need many of the classic cookie ingredients. These include all-purpose flour, baking soda, cornstarch, eggs, sugars, and more. For a decadent buttery taste, this recipe calls for one and a half sticks of butter. What makes these cookies special and not just your everyday chocolate chip cookies, is the fun mix-in.

Toll House now makes a few triple treat combinations they call Morsels & More. For these bars, use the Strawberries & Cream Flavored Morsels & More package. It includes premium white chocolate chip morsels, graham cracker bits, and strawberry-flavored chunks. It is a chewy, fruit, & sweet combination that makes these cookies irresistible.

• Salted Butter
• Sugar
• Brown Sugar
• Eggs
• Vanilla Extract
• All-Purpose Flour
• Baking Soda
• Cornstarch
• Salt
• Nestle Toll House Strawberries & Cream Flavored Morsels & More

See the recipe card for quantities.

Instructions

With most cookie recipes, having room-temperature ingredients is important. As with this recipe, the eggs and the butter should not be cold and straight out of the refrigerator. Bring butter & eggs to room temperature before mixing the dough. This takes about 30 minutes. Once the ingredients are ready, preheat the oven to 350°.

Begin making the cookie dough by combining the dry ingredients in a medium-sized mixing bowl. Add the all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt, & cornstarch. This cookie recipe is made without baking powder. The cornstarch helps yield a soft cookie and the baking soda is the active agent to help this recipe be fluffy and tender.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the wet ingredients - softened butter, sugars, and vanilla. Using a hand mixer, mix on medium speed to cream the ingredients together until well combined.

Add the eggs one at a time and mix at low to medium speed. Once both eggs are combined with the wet ingredients, the dry ingredients are ready to be added.

Add ½ of the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients. With the hand mixer on low to medium, mix to bring the dry and wet ingredients together. Add the other half slowly with the mixer on low until all the dry ingredients are added. Then mix on medium speed to combine completely, scrape edges with a rubber spatula as needed to incorporate all ingredients together.

Once the dough is ready, add the strawberries & cream morsel mixture. Fold or stir them gently into the cookie dough to evenly distribute.

How Long to Bake Cookie Bars

Prepare an 11x7 jelly roll dish with foil.   Spray the foil with cooking spray.  Scoop the dough into the baking pan and smooth out evenly.  The cookie dough should go about 75% up the sides of the pan.

Bake 25-30 minutes.  A toothpick inserted into the dough should come out clean without any dough on it (streaks of melted white chocolate are ok). The top will be lightly golden and the corners a light brown.

How To Cut Cookies in Squares

Let the cookies cool in the baking pan for 30 minutes.  Lift the foil out of the pan.  Place the foil-lined cookie block on a cutting board. Peel back the edges of the foil or remove it entirely as I have.

Hint: I like to use a long sharp knife - like a bread knife. This allows me to get through most of the distance across the cookie slab at once without sawing back and forth which makes the cookie crumble.

Along the short end, I make 3 equal cuts to get 4 cookies. Then along the long side, I make 5 even cuts to get 6 cookies in that direction. This will result in 24 equal-sized square cookie bars.

Once you cool & cut them, the cookies will be thick, soft, & have that gooey almost undercooked tenderness. Each cookie bar will be golden brown on the outside and have sweet white chocolate chips and bright red strawberry pieces you can see inside. If you love your brownies gooey, you will love these strawberry & cream cookie bars too.

Substitutions

Baking is a science so making substitutions can be difficult. Here are some suggested changes you can make to alter the recipe to meet some dietary needs or because of food allergies.

• All-Purpose Flour - instead of regular flour try using a gluten-free blend that is a 1:1 substitute.
• Salted Butter - if you do not have salted butter you can use unsalted and up the overall salt added to the dry ingredients from 1 teaspoon to now 1 ½ teaspoons.
• Morsels & More - If you cannot find this product, you can still make these cookies. Instead, add ¾ cup white chocolate chips and ½ cup freeze-dried strawberries (Trader Joe's & Amazon carry them)

Please note that I have not tried using the 1:1 gluten-free flour in this strawberries and cream cookie recipe. I have however used it in other cookie recipes without fail.

Equipment

When baking this recipe certain pieces of equipment are needed. I recommend a hand mixer so that the eggs and sugar are creamed properly. You will also need the correct size of baking dish to cook these cookie bars in. This will ensure they are cooked until golden brown without overcooking and drying out the inside. And this recipe needs the star ingredient, the Strawberries and Cream Flavored Morsels & More by Toll House.

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Storage

These bar cookies store well and will remain soft and tender if stored properly. Store leftover baked bars in an air-tight container in a single layer. If needed, use parchment paper between layers. Store the container with the cookies in a cool dark place such as the pantry or cupboard. The cookie bars will be good for up to 3 days.

These cookies and the dough will stand up well to freezing. You can mix the dough and freeze it in an air-tight ziplock bag for up to 3 months. You can also freeze baked cookie bars for up to 60 days. Place cut cookies in an even layer in an air-tight container. Separate layers with parchment paper if needed.