Start by taking a ½ oz of freeze-dried strawberries (about ½ a standard 1oz bag) and pulsing them in a food processor or coffee/spice grinder until reduced to powder and set aside. (You can do this by hand, if necessary, but it will take more work getting them all broken up.) Then take 4-6 waffle cones and crush with a rolling pin or meat pounder (anything heavy will work) until you have around 1 cup worth of crumbs and set aside. Basically, you want the strawberries to be powder, but the waffle cone to be small pieces.

In a mixing bowl with a hand-mixer, or in the bowl of a stand-mixer, beat the cream cheese on medium-high speed until creamy, about 1 minute. Add the butter and continue beating on med-high until well combined, about a minute or two more. Add the white and brown sugars and cream on med speed until you have a light and fluffy mixture, about 2 minutes. Finally, add the egg, ½ teaspoon of almond extract, and 1 ½ teaspoons of the divided vanilla extract. Beat in slowly until the egg is incorporated, turning the speed up higher until fully mixed, about 1 minute. Set the wet mixture aside.

Using 3 separate mixing bowls (or any large bowls you have), divide the flour into 1 cup in each bowl, then remove about 2 tablespoons of flour from two of the bowls and add it to the 3rd bowl (this will be your vanilla batter). Add a ¼ teaspoon of salt and ½ a teaspoon of baking powder into each bowl. Add the strawberry powder to one of the bowls, and the cocoa powder to the other (these should both be bowls you removed a little flour from) and then whisk each bowl until everything is well combined.

Fully whipped, you should have roughly 3 cups worth of the wet mixture, split that into 3 1-cup portions. Working with one batch at a time, add one of the bowls of dry mixture to 1 cup of the wet mixture and mix on low then med speed until well combined. For the vanilla batter, add the divided ½ teaspoon of vanilla extract. Once all 3 cookie doughs have been mixed, fold in the waffle cone pieces with a rubber spatula in each of the bowls. Then cover and refrigerate for at least 40 minutes to an hour.

Preheat your oven to 350°F / 180°C and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat. Add your sanding sugar to a bowl and set aside.

Using a 1 tablespoon measure or cookie scoop, scoop the dough and shape into a smooth ball in your hand. Roll the cookie dough in your sugar and place on the baking sheet. The cookies won’t spread much at all, so you should be able to fit 15-20 cookies on a sheet. Once the baking sheet is full, use a glass or measuring cup and press down on the tops of the cookies. You don’t need to smush them, just flatten the top and bottom slightly. This will help the cookies retain their shape and they’re less likely to crack when you press the Kisses into them.

Bake the cookies for 9-11 minutes. They don’t gain much color, so you may want to make a small test batch to see how long they take in your oven first. Normally I’m a fan of placing the Kisses into the cookies as soon as they come out of the oven, but since the strawberry ice cream Kisses melt more easily, I recommend letting them cool at least 4-5 minutes first and transferring to a cooling rack.