These strawberry jam cookies are not just pretty, they are super yummy too!
The cookies are made up of 2 layers of rich, crumbly buttery shortbread cookies that are sandwiched together with homemade fresh strawberry jam. The top layer is garnished with a light sprinkle of crunchy poppy seeds and has a heart-shaped hole in the center.
With the red sweet strawberry jam filling showing through the heart shape cut out, these cookies are not only pleasant to the taste but to the eyes too. And they make a great variation to the classic thumbprint cookies and linzer cookies, too.
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❤️Why you will love this recipe
- Making these strawberry butter cookies is fairly easy. The recipe only requires simple ingredients that are commonly available at home.
- These delicious cookies make great festive treats for the holiday season. You can bake and pack these for cookie exchange or cookie box!
- They make a great variation to the strawberry thumbprint cookies which are typically made with strawberry jam.
Like this recipe? You might want to check out these mango jam cookies which is a buttery shortbread cookie filled with homemade mango jam. And here are my other recipes you might want to check out too:
- Strawberry Filling (An Easy Homemade Recipe)
- Small Batch Strawberry Jam
- Pineapple Jam Recipe (How to Make Pineapple Jam without Pectin)
- Strawberry Oat Bars with Nutty Crumble Topping
- Strawberry Rolls with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Glaze
- Moist Strawberry and Almond Cake
📋Ingredients
Cookies
- All purpose flour - best sifted before using to break any lumps.
- Salt - used in small quantity to enhance the taste of the cookies. Use fine salt.
- Butter - I use salted butter. If using unsalted butter, add an extra tiny pinch of salt in the recipe.
- Brown sugar - both dark or light brown sugar will work. Use fine sugar.
- Egg yolks - holds the cookie dough together.
- Vanilla extract - adds a lovely flavor to the cookies.
Filling:
- Strawberry jam - you can make this on your own or use store bought jam. For best results, use smooth jam (i.e. without large fruit chunks).
Garnish (Optional)
- Poppy seeds
- Egg white - to brush on the cookie to hold the poppy seeds in place.
*Refer to the recipe card below for exact quantities of the ingredients above. For best results, use a digital kitchen scale where applicable*
🧾Substitution and variations
- Strawberry jam can be replaced with any other jam you like mango jam or pineapple jam. Make sure it is smooth and does not have chunky fruit pieces in it.
- You can also cut the heart shaped hole into a bigger heart if you like.
This recipe has not been tested with other substitutions or variations. If you do try, please let me know in the comments section below!
👩🏻🍳How to make
Making the strawberry jam filling
- These cookies are sandwiched with strawberry jam. I make my own strawberry jam and so the first process of making these jam cookies starts with making the strawberry jam itself.
- You can also use store-bought jam.
Mixing the cookie dough
- To make the strawberry jam cookies, start by creaming the butter, brown sugar and salt together in a large bowl over medium speed with a hand mixer. Beat until the mixture turns creamy.
- Add in the egg yolks and vanilla and continue beating until all traces of the egg are no longer visible.
- Finally, sift the flour in and mix until the dough forms a ball. Place the dough in a medium bowl, cover with plastic wrap and chill it for 10 minutes.
Cutting the cookies
- Divide the dough into smaller sections.
- Place one section in between 2 sheets of parchment and roll it flat. I place 2 dowel rods on either side of the dough as I roll it (my rolling pin will be on the rods as I roll the dough) for consistent thickness.
- Cut the cookies out using a round scalloped cookie cutter. For half of the circles cut out, use a small heart-shaped cutter to cut out a tiny heart-shaped hole in the center of the cookies. Place the cookies on prepared baking sheet.
- Brush some egg white onto the surface of the cookie layers with the heart cut out. The egg white helps in holding the poppy seeds in place after baking. Plus it gives the top of the cookies a lovely shade of brown. Sprinkle some poppy seeds on.
- Bake cookies in a preheated oven until they turn slightly brown on the edges.
Assembling the jam cookies
- Remove the cookies from the oven and let them rest on the cookie sheet for about 2 minutes before transferring them onto a wire rack.
- Once the cookies turn warm, sandwich them with the strawberry jam.
- Return the sandwiched cookies back to the oven for 10 minutes. This helps the jam to thicken and avoid the cookie layers from sliding away. (Keep the oven heat on from the earlier step).
- Remove the cookies from the oven. Let them cool completely on a cooling rack to room temperature before storing in an airtight container.
🍽️Serving & storage
- These sandwich cookies last very well. So long as they are kept in an airtight container, they can remain fresh for a good 1 week.
💡Expert tips
- The baking time of these cookies depends very much on the size of the cookies. If your cookies are smaller in size, reduce the baking time and if they are larger, increase the baking time slightly.
- I used my homemade strawberry jam for these cookies. You can use any jam you like (raspberry jam will work well for this cookies both in terms of taste and color), but for best results, it is best that the jam is smooth and does not contain large fruit chunks.
- Since the dough is soft, I rolled it between 2 sheets of parchment paper. Also, to make sure the thickness of the dough was consistent for all cookies, I placed 2 dowel rods on either side of the dough and used them as a guide in rolling my cookie dough.
- To transfer the cut-out cookies into my baking tray, I use a flat spatula to lift the cut-out cookies from the parchment paper to the baking tray.
💭FAQs
Yes, you certainly can. The poppy seeds are only for garnish and you can totally omit them. And you can also omit the egg white wash. The main reason I used the egg whites was on these strawberry jam cookies is to hold the poppy seeds in place. But if you do not wish to use the poppy seeds, you can omit the egg whites too.
No they don't. Hence, there is no need to space them out too much on the baking tray.
The only reason these strawberry jam cookies need to be returned to the oven for an additional 10 minutes after filling them with jam is to thicken the jam up. The thickened jam helps to hold both cookie layers together and so when you store them in a cookie jar, the layers do not slide away.
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📖Recipe
Strawberry Jam Cookies
For best results, use the metrics measurements. US customary measurements have not been tested and are only meant for guide.
Ingredients
Cookies
- 250 g all purpose flour
- 175 g butter
- 150 g soft brown sugar
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Filling:
- Strawberry jam
Garnish
- 1 tablespoon poppy seeds
- 1 egg white
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 175 °Celsius and line baking trays with parchment paper.
- Cream butter, brown sugar, and salt till creamy. Add the egg yolks, followed by vanilla extract and continue to beat until the eggs and vanilla are well incorporated into the creamed mixture.
- Carefully add in the flour and mix until it is all well incorporated. Wrap dough with cling wrap and refrigerate for 10 minutes.
- Remove dough from the refrigerator and roll out between 2 plastic sheets or parchment paper to about ¾ cm thickness. Cut the dough using a scalloped round cutter until all the cookie dough is used up.
- For half of the cookie circles, cut out a tiny heart in the centers. Re-roll the heart cuts outs and cut out more cookies until all the dough is used up again.
- Brush egg white all over the top of cookies with the heart cut out holes and sprinkle poppy seeds on them.
- Bake all the cookies for about 12 minutes until they turn golden brown.
- Remove cookies from the oven and let them rest for 2 minutes in the tray before transferring them to a wire rack.
- To assemble the cookies, spread some strawberry jam on cookies without the heart cut out holes and top them with the cookies with the heart cut out holes.
- Arrange the cookies on the baking tray once again and return them to the oven for another 10 minutes.
- Remove the cookies from the oven and transfer them onto a wire rack to cool completely before storing them in an airtight container.
Notes
- The baking time of these cookies depends very much on the size of the cookies. If your cookies are smaller in size, reduce the baking time and if they are larger, increase the baking time slightly.
- I used my homemade strawberry jam for these cookies. You can use any jam you like (raspberry jam will work well for this cookies both in terms of taste and color), but for best results, it is best that the jam is smooth and does not contain large fruit chunks.
- Since the dough is soft, roll it between 2 sheets of parchment paper. Also, to make sure the thickness of the dough was consistent for all cookies, you can place 2 dowel rods on either side of the dough and use them as a guide in rolling the cookie dough.
- To transfer the cut-out cookies onto the baking tray, use a flat spatula to lift the cut-out cookies from the parchment paper to the baking tray.
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