Our gluten free White Chocolate Strawberry Cookies are delicious and fun to make for friends! These are naturally colored and flavored (no artificial dyes), and they’re also dairy free and egg free.
We have a thing for cookies since they are so quick and easy to make allergy friendly compared to other treats, like cakes. One of my favorite things to do is come up with some fun variations for our classic chocolate chip cookie recipe, and we found another new favorite: strawberry white chocolate chip cookies!
These are a yummy and fun way to enjoy strawberries year round, but especially in the spring and summer when you want more fruit flavored desserts.
The best thing about these strawberry cookies is that they are naturally colored and flavored with real strawberries! Our recipe doesn’t use red dyes or strawberry Jello to add flavor or color.
Food allergy notes:
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Egg free and vegan
- Peanut free
- Soy free, depending on the ingredients you choose
- Tree nut free, depending on the ingredients you choose
How to make gluten free strawberry cookies
If you’ve made any of our other chocolate chip cookie variations, our strawberry version is just like the others: pretty easy to make!
This is just an overview of the steps, the full recipe card is at the end of the post:
- Preheat your oven and cover your baking pan with parchment paper (or a baking mat).
- Grind freeze dried strawberries (about 2 cups) into a powder using a mortar and pestle or a food processor. You’ll need 1/4 cup + 2 Tablespoons (which equals 6 Tablespoons). Sift the powder to remove bigger pieces, and store any extra strawberry powder in an airtight container.
- With a hand blender or mixer, cream together the soft dairy free butter, sugar, brown sugar, strawberry powder, baking soda, and vanilla until mixed and creamy.
- Mix in the gluten free baking mix.
- Add the sorghum flour, the dairy free milk, and the allergy friendly white chocolate chips until a thick dough forms.
- Scoop out about 1 Tablespoon of cookie dough, roll it into 1-inch sized balls, and flatten them slightly on the prepared baking pan.
- Bake for 11-12 minutes. Don’t overbake these or they will get pretty hard.
- Cool on the pan for 5 minutes then remove to a wire rack to cool.
- Once they are cooled completely, store in an airtight container or bag.
These cookies will get firmer and chewier as they cool, so make sure not to overbake these or they will get hard because of the fruit powder.
To keep these soft, once they are cool, put them in an airtight container or bag to keep them from getting too dry.
A note about gluten free baking mix vs flour
We used gluten free baking mix in this recipe that already has some baking soda, xanthan gum, and salt in it. The xanthan gum acts as a binder in this recipe instead of gluten, and it works great in place of eggs as well in this recipe.
Not all gluten free all purpose flours have the salt or xanthan gum in it, so check your label. If your gluten free baking mix doesn’t have xanthan gum, salt, or baking soda, you may need to add a little bit of xanthan gum (1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon) to help this recipe hold together.
If you are using a gluten free all purpose flour that has xanthan gum in it but doesn’t have baking soda, salt, etc. you can add 1/8 teaspoon additional baking soda and 1/4 teaspoon salt to this recipe.
What kind of dairy free butter can I use in these cookies?
We recommend using a dairy free butter that can hold its shape fairly well at room temperature. Our favorite dairy free butter to use for cookies these days is the Country Crock plant butter sticks (the sticks don’t have soybean oil but the tubs do).
I don’t recommend using the Earth Balance tub margarine in these cookies. I’ve tested our chocolate chip cookie recipe with the EB soy free tub margarine in past, and it’s is too thin/runny and causes the cookies to spread too much.
I haven’t tested the Earth Balance butter sticks since not too many of our local stores carry them, so we stick with the Country Crock plant butter sticks since they bake so well in our cookies.
Any other firm plant butter should work as well, like the Flora plant butter or the Miyoko’s dairy free butter. You just want to make sure that your butter is at room temperature and it still holds its shape well, otherwise it might be too runny for this recipe.
Strawberry powder or freeze dried strawberries?
In this recipe (and most of our recipes using freeze dried strawberry powder), we crush our own freeze dried strawberries into powder using either a mortar and pestle or a small food processor.
But if you want to save some time or the extra step, you can buy bags of strawberry powder online that is made exactly the same way we make it. Most of the strawberry powder online is just ground and sifted freeze dried strawberries the same way we make it, it just saves some time buying it already powdered.
Since our local stores have the freeze dried strawberries but not the powder, we just make our own strawberry powder.
What brand of dairy free white chocolate chips can I use?
There are several great brands of dairy free white chocolate chips on the market today! We usually use the Great Value allergy friendly white chocolate chips, but here are a few other allergy friendly brands you can try as well:
- Enjoy Life Foods mini white chocolate chips (so far only available in mini chips)
- Pascha white chocolate chips
- Nestle Simply Delicious white chocolate chips (we don’t like the taste and texture of these as well)
If you don’t like white chocolate, you can always swap the white chocolate chips with regular semi-sweet chocolate chips as well for a chocolate dipped strawberry flavor! Or use a mix of both regular chocolate and white chocolate chips.
We love the Nestle allergy friendly semi-sweet chocolate chips the best for texture and taste, and are top 8 free.
Check out our other allergy friendly chocolate chip cookie recipes:
- BEST Gluten Free Chocolate Chip Cookies (vegan)
- Lemon White Chocolate Cookies
- Cranberry Orange White Chocolate Cookies
- Inside Out Cookies (Chocolate White Chocolate Chip Cookies)
Gluten Free White Chocolate Strawberry Cookies (Vegan)
Ingredients
- ½ cup dairy free/vegan butter, softened* (we recommend the Country Crock Plant Butter sticks)*
- ½ cup unbleached cane sugar
- ½ cup packed brown sugar
- ¼ cup + 2 Tablespoons freeze dried strawberry powder
- ⅛ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup gluten free all purpose baking mix** (we used King Arthur Flour gluten free all purpose baking mix)
- ¾ cup fine sorghum flour OR brown rice flour
- ¼ cup + 2 Tablespoons dairy free milk (such as rice milk or oat milk)
- ½ cup allergy friendly white chocolate chips (we like the Great Value allergy friendly white chocolate chips)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper and set aside.
- Using a food processor or a mortar and pestle, grind about 1 ½ cups freeze dried strawberries into powder and sift out the large pieces. You'll need ¼ cup + 2 Tablespoons (which equals 6 Tablespoons). Set aside.
- In a large bowl, cream together the dairy free butter, sugar, brown sugar, strawberry powder, vanilla, and baking soda until well mixed.
- Add the all purpose gluten free baking mix to the butter mixture and mix until blended.
- Add the the sorghum flour, the dairy free milk, and the white chocolate chips to the mixture and mix again until combined and a thick dough forms.
- Scoop cookie dough out with a silverware teaspoon (or measuring tablespoon) and drop on the cookie sheet by spoonfuls about 2 inches apart.
- If you'd like more uniform cookies, roll the cookie dough into 1-inch balls then flatten slightly on the cookie sheet.
- Bake 10-11 minutes for softer cookies, or 12 minutes for crispier cookies. These will be a bit chewier than regular chocolate chip cookies once they are cooled due to the fruit powder.
- Allow to cool on the pan for about 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Store in an airtight container at room temperature for 3-4 days (if they last that long!) or freeze them. These store well in the freezer.
Notes
Nutrition
Sarah Jane Parker is the founder, recipe creator, and photographer behind The Fit Cookie. She’s a food allergy mom and healthy living blogger based in Wyoming. Sarah is also an ACSM Certified Personal Trainer, ACE Certified Health Coach, Revolution Running certified running coach, and an ACE Certified Fitness Nutrition Specialist