Adorable, not too sweet, soft Kirby sugar cookies decorated with melted chocolate. The strawberry flavored dough comes together within minutes, taking plain sugar cookies to a whole new level!
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❤️ Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- They’re cute AND easy! Although they look quite impressive, they’re actually simple to make. I mixed the dough by hand and used melted chocolates to add the faces. No need to whip up royal icing or anything!
- The strawberry flavor really comes through. There’s 3 tablespoons of freeze-dried strawberry powder, which add the perfect amount of flavor to the dough.
- It’s versatile. Since this is a basic sugar cookie dough, you could zhuzh it up however you like. For example, you could add half a cup of white chocolate chips or Golden Oreos.
Looking for more easy cookie recipes? Try out my black sesame cookies with white chocolate cookies, or funfetti cookies!
Ingredients
To make cute Kirby cookies from scratch, you’ll need the following ingredients:
- Melted unsalted butter makes the cookie dough really easy to mix by hand.
- I like to use a mix of brown sugar and granulated sugar to create the perfect balance of flavor and chew. You can use light or dark brown sugar; dark brown sugar will just give you a deeper butterscotch flavor.
- Adding in both baking powder and baking soda gives us the exact texture and rise we’re aiming for!
- Freeze-dried strawberry powder adds all the strawberry flavor we’ll need in this recipe. It’s not pigmented enough to make the cookies pink, so I highly recommend adding a few drops of pink food coloring. You’ll also need red food coloring for Kirby’s feet.
- You can use either vanilla extract or vanilla paste (1:1) in this recipe.
- To add the Kirby faces, I used white and milk/dark chocolate melting chips. Alternatively, you can use chocolate wafers or candy melts.
- I dyed some melted white chocolate blue for the eyes and red for the blush using! It’s best to use oil-based food coloring so the chocolate doesn’t split. If you only have regular food coloring and the chocolate splits, you can stir in a little bit of neutral oil (vegetable, canola) until it comes back together.
For the full list of ingredients and measurements, see the recipe card below.
💡 Baking Tip
- Weigh your ingredients! One of my favorite kitchen tools is a kitchen scale because it’s more accurate than measuring by volume. If you use cups, spoon the flour in gently, then level it with a knife or spatula.
How to Make Cute Kirby Cookies
Step 1: Mix together melted butter with brown and granulated sugars until fully combined.
Step 2: Add in egg, vanilla, freeze-dried strawberry powder, and a bit of pink food coloring. Stir until smooth.
Step 3: Stir in dry ingredients until no dry spots remain. Take about 2 tablespoons of dough and add to another bowl. Mix in red food coloring. This will be for Kirby’s feet. Cover and chill doughs for 30 minutes.
Step 4: Use a cookie scoop (2-3 tablespoon capacity) to gather pink dough. Roll in sugar and place on lined baking sheet. Add arms and feet (use red dough) as pictured above, using ½ teaspoon dough balls for each. Play around with arm placements here—you can make some Kirbys pose differently! Place Kirbys 3-4 inches apart, and bake at 350°F/177°C for 10-12 minutes, or until edges are set and middles look mostly cooked through.
Step 3: Use melted chocolate to draw on Kirby faces. I used milk chocolate for the eyes and mouth, white and blue for the eye details, and pink for the blush!
Step 4: Enjoy! Store Kirby cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
For full instructions, see the recipe card below.
“POYOOOOOOO” – taste tester 😂
Strawberry Kirby Cookie FAQs
Sure! Feel free to add half a cup of whatever mix-in you like when adding the dries. You can add white chocolate chips, chopped Golden Oreos, etc.
They can last at room temperature in an airtight container for up 5 days. See my storage instructions for more information.
Storage
- Room temperature: Store cooled cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
- Freezing instructions: Store cooled cookies in a freezer-safe container for up to 3 months. You can also freeze cookie dough balls for up to a year and bake as usual—just add a couple more minutes to the baking time.
- Reheating instructions: Allow frozen cookies to thaw at room temperature for about 15 minutes. Or, reheat in the microwave at 10-second intervals.
🍓 More Strawberry Recipes
Did you try this recipe?
Please leave a review & share it with me on Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, or Pinterest!
Thank you so much! -Bianca ❤️
📖 Recipe & Video
Strawberry Kirby Sugar Cookies
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Equipment
- large mixing bowl for mixing dough
- small mixing bowl for red dough
- Parchment Paper
- Piping bag or toothpick or cookie scribe for adding decorations
Ingredients
Dry ingredients:
- 1 ½ cup (187.5 g) all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon (2 g) baking soda
- ½ teaspoon (2 g) baking powder
- ½ teaspoon (3 g) fine sea salt
Wet ingredients:
- ½ cup (113.5 g) unsalted butter melted and cooled
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- ¼ cup (55 g) light brown sugar packed
- 3 tablespoons (18 g) freeze dried strawberry powder
- 1 tablespoon (13 g) vanilla paste or extract
- 1 (1) egg
- pink food coloring
- red food coloring
For rolling:
- 4 tablespoons (48 g) granulated sugar
Decoration for face:
- 1 tablespoon (15 g) milk or dark chocolate melted
- 1 tablespoon (14.79 g) white chocolate melted
- oil-based food coloring blue, pink/red; see steps
Instructions
For the strawberry cookie dough:
- In a large mixing bowl, use silicone spatula to mix melted ½ cup unsalted butter, ½ cup granulated sugar, and ¼ cup light brown sugar until smooth.
- Mix in 3 tablespoons freeze dried strawberry powder, 1 egg and 1 tablespoon vanilla, and pink food coloring until smooth.
- Add in all of the dry ingredients: 1 ½ cup all-purpose flour, ½ teaspoon baking powder, ½ teaspoon baking soda, and ½ teaspoon fine sea salt. Mix until no dry spots remain. Add more pink food coloring as needed.
- Take about 2 tablespoons of dough and add to a small bowl. Mix in red food coloring to make Kirby's feet.Cover and chill doughs in fridge for 20-30 minutes. This will let the flour hydrate and let the butter cool, yielding chewier cookies. The dough will also be easier to work with. 🙂
Scoop & bake Kirbys:
- Preheat oven to 350°F/177°C and line two baking trays with parchment paper.
- In a small bowl, add 4 tablespoons granulated sugar for rolling the dough.
- Use medium cookie dough scoop to gather dough (about 2-3 tablespoons each). Shape into a ball and roll in granulated sugar. Place onto lined baking tray. This will be Kirby's body. Repeat for about 10-12 cookies spacing them 3-4 inches apart. Make sure you have some leftover pink dough for the arms!
- For the arms, take about 1 teaspoon of dough, and split it into two equally sized pieces. Roll into balls and place on the sides of Kirby's body.
- To make the feet, scoop about 1 teaspoon of red dough and equally split it into two balls. Then, place them at the bottoms of each Kirby.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes, or until edges are set and middles are mostly baked through.If the Kirby's aren't perfect circles, you can use a rubber spatula, spoon, or knife to gently push the edges of the cookie to your liking! Make sure to do this while the cookies are fresh out of the oven and warm.
- Let cool on pan for about 5-10 minutes, then transfer cookies to wire rack. Let cool completely.
For the Kirby faces:
- You can a piping bag, toothpick, or cookie scribe to add on the details. I used a scribe.
- Use melted milk or dark chocolate to create the eyes, and mouth. Let eyes dry before continuing.
- Use melted white chocolate to add the whites of Kirby's eyes. Split half of the melted white chocolate into another bowl, since you will dying the white chocolate half blue and the other half pink/red.
- Add oil-based blue food coloring to the melted white chocolate. If you don't have oil-based food coloring, then the chocolate will seize/become lumpy. To counter this, stir in a tsp of neutral oil (canola, vegetable) at a time, until it becomes smooth again. Use this to add the blue details to Kirby's eyes.
- To the rest of the white chocolate, add oil-based pink/red food coloring. Use this to draw on the blush.
- Enjoy!
Notes
- Weigh your ingredients! One of my favorite kitchen tools is a kitchen scale because it’s more accurate than measuring by volume. If you use cups, spoon the flour in gently, then level it with a knife or spatula.
- Room temperature: Store cooled cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
- Freezing instructions: Store cooled cookies in a freezer-safe container for up to 3 months. You can also freeze raw cookie dough balls for up to 3 months and bake as usual; just add a few minutes to the baking time.
- Reheating instructions: Allow frozen cookies to thaw at room temperature for about 10 minutes. Or, reheat in the microwave at 10-second intervals.
I Loved this recipe ❤️❤️❤️
They were so cute and tasted Amazing ✨🎂💖🍓
So cute and so yummy!! My husband doesn’t even like sugar cookies (or desserts really) and he loved these! Perfect sweetness and chewiness and rolling the dough in sugar before baking gives these the perfect touch!
so cute! i made them for my boyfriend and i made them a little too dark but still they taste amazing and he loves them! they were very easy to make and the instructions were very clear and thorough^ i’d say this would be easy to make even for beginners
These cookies are almost too cute to eat! The recipe directions are so thorough, it made making these so easy. They taste absolutely amazing and were so soft yet chewy. Definitely will be making these again.
I used this recipe yesterday to surprise my boyfriend. He absolutely loved them! I substituted all purpose flour for oat flour at 1:1 ratio. Super easy recipe to follow and they had the perfect amount of sweetness. Now I’m ready to browse more of Bianca’s recipes for cute cookies!
Adorable cookies! I baked them for my sister for Valentine’s Day and she loved them. I baked them for about 11 minutes, so they were nice and soft. The strawberry and sugar cookie taste goes well together. I had a lot of fun making Kirby.
Aww, what a sweet gift for your sister! I’m glad you had a lot of fun and enjoyed eating them. Happy baking! ❤️
i used this recipe exactly and was soooo pleased with the results!! not too sweet, just sweet enough! a tip, if u can’t find straight up freeze dried strawberry powder, just smash the strawberries yourself! i’ll totally make these again!! <3
That’s what I did too! I ended up finding the freeze dried strawberries for a good price at Trader Joe’s.