Cinnamon Swirl Cookies
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It’s the final day of Cookie Week 2025!
These cinnamon swirl cookies have all of the flavours you get from a cinnamon roll but in cookie form - which makes them a lot easier to bring to holiday gatherings & cookie exchanges. I used to make these for the shop when I had my bakery and they were so popular we couldn’t keep them on the shelves!
They’re made with my classic sugar cookie dough, which is rolled out and filled with butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon, then rolled into a log that you can slice and bake. After baking, you can add cream cheese glaze or keep them plain if you prefer!
What do I need to make them?
Here’s your grocery list:
-Salted Butter
-Granulated Sugar
-Vanilla Bean Paste
-Eggs
-All Purpose Flour
-Baking Powder
-Dark Brown Sugar
-Ground Cinnamon
-Cream Cheese
-Icing Sugar
You will also need a kitchen scale , a stand or handheld mixer (or a bowl and a wooden spoon and some arm strength!), a few bowls, a spatula, a whisk, a couple baking sheets, parchment paper, a wire baking rack or two, a ruler or measuring tape, and a rolling pastry cutter or a sharp paring knife.
Tips & Tricks:
-Chill your sugar cookie dough in the freezer for 10 minutes while you’re prepping the filling to make it easier to work with
-It doesn’t matter how long you roll out your dough, it just needs to be 6” wide. You can cut it up into smaller segments to make it easier to roll into logs after you add your filling if you want.
-Don’t skip chilling the logs! If you try to slice and bake before they’re chilled the cilling will cause the cookies to separate around the swirl
Ready to bake?
Cinnamon Swirl Cookies
All the classic flavours of a cinnamon roll but in cookie form! Sugar cookie dough gets filled with a buttery cinnamon brown sugar filling then rolled up and sliced into cookies and finished with a cream cheese glaze.
Ingredients
- 180g All Purpose Flour
- 3/4 tsp Baking Powder
- 108g Salted Butter (Room temperature)
- 105g Granulated Sugar
- 4g (3/4 tsp) Vanilla Paste or the seeds from 1/2 Vanilla Bean
- 1 Large Egg (Room temperature)
- 30g Salted Butter
- 50g Dark Brown Sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp Ground Cinnamon
- 60g Cream Cheese, softened
- 30g Salted Butter, softened
- 1/2 tsp Vanilla Bean Paste
- 35g Icing Sugar (sifted if clumpy)
Instructions
- Whisk together your flour and baking powder in a small bowl.
- Put your butter, sugar, and vanilla paste (or seeds) into the bowl of a stand mixer and mix on medium speed with paddle attachment until all butter is incorporated into sugar and mixture is smooth.
- Crack your eggs into a pitcher or bowl
- While mixer is running on medium speed, add your eggs one at a time, waiting after each addition for your eggs to incorporate and stopping the mixer and scraping down the bowl as needed.
- Stop the mixer and dump your flour mixture into the bowl. Change speed to low and mix until flour is just incorporated. DO NOT OVERMIX.
- Remove bowl from mixer and finish mixing by hand to ensure that all ingredients are incorporated evenly (get down to the bottom of the bowl with your hands or a spatula or dump out dough and mix on counter)
- Place your dough in the freezer for 10 minutes while you prep your filling.
- Melt your butter & mix together the brown sugar & cinnamon in a separate bowl. Set aside.
- Roll out half your dough into a rectangle about 6" wide on a lightly floured surface to approximately 1/4" thick. It doesn't matter how long your rectangle is, but make sure it is 6" wide. Trim the edges of your dough with a rolling pastry cutter or sharp paring knife to make them even. Repeat with any remaining dough and your scraps.
- Pour the butter onto your dough rectangles and spread out with a pastry brush or the back of a spoon. Sprinkle the brown sugar cinnamon mixture on top and spread it evenly to the edges, then roll up your dough into a log (roll from the long edge). Put your logs in an airtight container in the fridge to chill for 1 hour or up to overnight.
- When you're ready to bake, preheat your oven to 375 F and line a couple of baking sheets with parchment paper.
- Slice your cookies about 1cm/0.4" thick and place on the baking trays, leaving about an inch of space between each cookie.
- Bake your cookies for 9-11 minutes, until they are just starting to brown around the edges. Let them cool on the baking tray on a wire rack.
- Once cooled, you can drizzle them with cream cheese glaze if desired. To make the glaze, simply beat all the glaze ingredients together in a small bowl with a whisk or a handheld mixer (make sure your butter and cream cheese are very soft if using a whisk). Use a piping bag to drizzle the cream cheese glaze onto your cookies. Let the glaze set for a couple of hours until firm to the touch before storing your cookies.
- You can store these cookies in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days, or in the freezer in an airtight container for several months. Bring them up to room temperature before eating for best flavour and texture. If you are not using the cream cheese glaze, these cookies can be stored at room temperature.
