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Chewy Frosted Cinnamon Swirl Snickerdoodles with pockets of cinnamon swirl and a sweet cream cheese icing. These are yummmmy! Homemade snickerdoodle cookies, made with browned butter, chunks of cinnamon that melt into wonderful swirls, and a small pinch of flaky sea salt. The best snickerdoodle recipe to share with family and friends. Each cookie dough ball is rolled with cinnamon sugar for that classic snickerdoodle finish before baking to perfection, then topped with creamy icing. There’s nothing not to love about these sweet Christmas cookies.
Ingredients
- dark brown sugar
- salted butter
- cinnamon
- large eggs
- vanilla extract
- all-purpose flour
- baking soda
- kosher salt
- granulated sugar
- cream cheese
- milk
- vanilla extract
- powdered sugar
What to have in the kitchen:
- Bowl
- Baking sheet
- parchment paper
- electric hand mixer or stand mixer
- skillet
- heatproof bowl
- small bowl
- whisk
- teaspoons/ tablespoons
- wire rack for cooling
Cookies! Tis’ the season! And man oh man, I have baked up a lot of cookies this week. I had quite a few failures until I landed on these. But these – oh these are extra special and worth all the testing time.
Oh, how I adore these cinnamon cookies. They’re Christmas time in a nice big, chewy, snickerdoodle(ish) cookie. The cinnamon-sugar coating is delicious. These are the best snickerdoodles and definitely a new holiday favorite.
Here’s the story, I’ve been testing a lot of cookies! And I am finally close to completing my 2022 Christmas cookie box, which I’m excited to share soon. But all the cookies came with a lot of failed recipes.
Failed recipes are sad in the moment, but often times they lead me to some of my very favorite recipes. After I worked and worked on a new gingerbread recipe, I decided to completely switch gears and move on to cinnamon cookies.
I just needed to forget about gingerbread for the moment. Once I did, I dreamt these up. They’re my favorite chewy snickerdoodle cookies. This might be my best snickerdoodle cookie recipe. Swirled with chunks of buttery cinnamon and notes of brown butter and vanilla. Then iced with creamy icing. I envisioned these like a cinnamon roll cookie, so the icing was needed.
Cream cheese icing, but not too sweet. Tis’ so delicious glazed over each cookie.
Here are details
Make the cinnamon swirl first. It’s just brown sugar mixed with butter and cinnamon. The best cinnamon sugar mixture! Exactly what you’d roll a cinnamon roll up with!
Now crumble the cinnamon into chunks and then freeze. It’s not fancy at all.
While the chunks freeze, make the cookies.
Start by browning half of your butter. It’s one stick of browned butter, and one stick of soft. This gives you the flavor of browned butter but leaves you with a cookie that has great texture too. Shocker, I know, I added browned butter (yes, I may have a browned butter fetish). But the browned butter really does add so much to cookies. It’s worth the extra step.
Then add brown sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Mix together, then add all the dry ingredients – flour, baking soda, and salt. I didn’t add chocolate chips in this recipe, but I’m sure that would be delicious as well!
By now the chunks should be frozen, mix them into the cookie dough and scoop out all your cookies. In classic snickerdoodle form, take each dough ball and roll through cinnamon sugar.
I do a light roll as I didn’t want the cookies to be overly sweet. Bake them up until they are barely set on the edge. Remove the pan and let the cookies cool on the baking sheet. The cookies continue to bake on the warm sheet.
For the icing. I suppose it’s not needed, but it’s certainly delicious, and I think it balances all the cinnamon in the cookie.
Cream cheese, milk, vanilla, and sugar. It’s thick and creamy, just the way we want it!
These are soft and gooey in the center. The best kind of cookie. I’m not normally such a decadent cookie person, but as I always say, I like to really do it up for the holidays. They only come once a year, so let’s just have fun and enjoy every minute of the season.
It’s cheesy, but the holidays do only come once a year!
Looking for other Christmas cookies? Here are my favorites:
Easy Vanilla Bean Christmas Lights Cookies
Easy Hot Chocolate Lace Cookies
Lastly, if you make these Chewy Frosted Cinnamon Swirl Snickerdoodles, be sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating! Above all, I love to hear from you guys and always do my best to respond to each and every comment. And of course, if you do make this recipe, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram! Looking through the photos of recipes you all have made is my favorite!
Chewy Frosted Cinnamon Swirl Snickerdoodles
Servings: 20 cookies
Calories Per Serving: 192 kcal
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
Ingredients
Cinnamon Swirl
- 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
- 4 tablespoons salted butter, at room temperature
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
Cookies
- 2 sticks (1 cup) salted butter, at room temperature
- 3/4 cup dark brown sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
Icing
- 2 ounces cream cheese
- 2-3 tablespoons milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
Instructions
- 1. To make the cinnamon swirl. In a bowl, mix the butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Line a small baking sheet with parchment. Crumble/tear the cinnamon mix over the baking sheet, creating small chunks, no more than 2 teaspoons in size. They should be small like chips. Freeze 10 minutes, until firm.2. To make the cookies. Add 1 stick butter to a skillet set over medium heat. Cook until the butter begins to brown, about 3-4 minutes. Remove from the heat and transfer to a heatproof bowl. Freeze 10-15 minutes, but no longer.3. Preheat the oven to 350° F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.4. In a bowl, beat together the remaining stick of butter, the cooled browned butter, and the brown sugar until combined. Beat in the eggs, 1 at a time, until combined. Add the vanilla, beating until creamy. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Fold in the frozen cinnamon chunks. 5. Mix the sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Roll the dough into rounded tablespoon size balls and then roll through the cinnamon sugar. Place 3 inches apart on the prepared baking sheet. 6. Bake for 8 minutes, rotate the pan and bake another 1-3 minutes or until the cookies are just beginning to set on the edges but still doughy in the center. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet. They will continue to cook slightly as they sit. 7. Meanwhile, make the icing. Melt the cream cheese in the microwave, stirring until smooth, 15-20 seconds. Whisk in the milk and vanilla. Add the powdered sugar, whisking to combine. Add milk, if needed, to thin. Spread or drizzle each cookie with icing. Eat warm or let cool and store in an airtight container for up to 4 days. The icing will harden/dry enough to stack.
Notes
Freezing: the cookie dough balls can be frozen for up to 3 months. Then just thaw and bake as directed.
This post was originally published on December 2, 2022
Followed the recipe exactly and they came out perfect!! A nice unique cookie for my cookie box this year!
Hey Hillary,
Happy Sunday!!☃️ Thanks a lot for making this recipe, I love to hear that it turned out well for you! xT
Made these tonight for a Christmas party and everyone raved about them!! So yummy! Will definitely make again.
Hey Hannah,
Wonderful!! So glad to hear that this recipe was a hit, thanks so much for making the cookies! Happy Sunday! xT
I say, try it! I kept the lessons from other reviews in mind but I think this is just one of those recipes that’s a bit more complex so the baker really needs to know their oven, ingredients, baking rules, etc. I froze the cinnamon butter sugar mix for 30 min and once folded into the dough, I put in the refrigerator for about two hours. (This wasn’t actually planned but I think helped). My dough balls were also a mix of 1-2 tablespoon, so probably yield 25-30 cookies. I tried to keep a good eye on the dough to cinnamon mixture ratio but like others, a good amount of mine oozed and melted out. But not all! And even the ones that did ooze, the melty sugar mix easily snapped away – leaving a perfectly good cookie! The icing truly made this cookie taste like a cinnamon roll (and hid any imperfections from the melting). I definitely will keep trying this recipe!
Hey Holly,
Happy Sunday!!☃️ I appreciate you making this recipe and sharing your feedback and what worked well for you, I love to hear that they were enjoyed! xT
These turned out so good! I did have to take a cup to make some more round after baking due to the buttery cinnamon mixture leaking out..but they turned out good! My husband loved them and said the recipe is a keeper!
Hey Kate,
Happy Sunday!!☃️ Thanks a lot for making this recipe, I love to hear that it turned out well for you! xT
I made these and they are amazing!! Just the right amount of chewy and sweet. I froze a dozen dough balls and will make those next week. I will be putting this in the saved recipe book and will make again very soon! Thank you, Tieghan!
Hey Katrina,
Amazing!! So glad to hear that this recipe was a hit! Thanks so much for making them and sharing your review:) xx
I tried this recipe and these cookies were amazing!! I replaced the flour with gluten free flour, and it turned out great! One of my new favorite cookies.
Hey Alexis,
Happy Sunday!!☃️ Thanks a lot for making this recipe, I love to hear that it turned out well for you! xT
These were ok. I’m not sure why salted butter is used in a cookie recipe. I never even have salted butter in my kitchen so had to look up how much salt to add to make it salted. I added the salt to half of the butter and then had second thoughts about it reading one review that said the cookies were salty. The icing doesn’t add anything to the flavor. I would definitely leave that out next time. My cookies spread apart terribly, probably because of those butter and sugar frozen bits mixed in. About a third of my cookies, as soon as those frozen bits melted they just pooled outside of my cookies making them super flat and, depending on how much of that frozen bit each cookie had in it, not even cookie like. It was as if some of them totally melted instead of cooking. Those that didn’t melt, didn’t spread out at all. They were more cake-like instead of flat cookies. Too much work to make these again.
Hi Stephanie,
Thanks for giving this recipe a try and sharing your feedback. Sorry to hear these were not enjoyed. I always used salted butter, but that’s a personal preference:) Let me know if there is anything that I can help with! xx
These are so yummy, major cinnamon roll vibes! But mine came out puffy and candy instead of flat and chewy like yours, how would you fix this?
Hey Sabrina,
So glad to hear you enjoyed these cookies!🍪 Thanks for making them! For a flatter cookie, try tapping your baking sheet on the counter. I hope this helps! xx
Sooo good but mine turned out more round and cakey than flat and chewy. This happens a lot to me with cookies. Any idea what I’m doing wrong?
Same, I was going to say this EXACT thing. The only difference is that I use a gluten free flour blend to accommodate some of kids with allergies.
Try the tapping of the baking sheet, that should help:)
Hey Ivy,
Happy Sunday!!☃️ Thanks a lot for making this recipe, I love to hear that it turned out well for you! For a flatter cookie, try tapping your baking sheet on the counter:) xT
These are amazing! I was never a snickerdoodle fan until now! A new family favorite!
Hey Kim,
Happy Sunday!!☃️ Thanks a lot for making this recipe, I love to hear that it turned out well for you! xT
When I made these, my cinnamon sugar chunks leaked outside of the cookie while baking. I followed the recipe exactly, any idea what went wrong?
Same thing happened to me!!
You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s a fault with the recipe.
Worked fine for me. So, perhaps it’s user error.
Hey Destinee,
Thanks for giving this recipe a try and sharing your feedback! Next time, try adding 1 tablespoon flour to the cinnamon mix and make sure you are only using 1 teaspoon for each cookie. I hope this helps! xT
My husband is a snickerdoodle lover, he thought they were good. But they did not taste like a snickerdoodle cookies to me, very bland. They did not spread out, only one did…my were very round. Disappointed, and very labor intensive. Will not make again…i am sorry because i love my cookbook and all the interesting recipes.
Hi Valerie,
Thanks for giving this recipe a try and sharing your feedback, so sorry to hear these were not enjoyed. Please let me know if there is anything that I can help with! xT
good! i made a half recipe so that may have had an impact? i left the crumble in the freezer longer and put extra dough in the fridge in between batches. didn’t have any issues with how they set up. a tad bit salty and more cakey than I anticipated, but still yummy. i went ahead and made the icing and drizzled but I am going to be freezing them. hope that was not the wrong choice
Hey Angela,
Amazing!! I appreciate you giving these cookies 🍪 a try and sharing your feedback! So glad they were enjoyed:) They should be okay in the freezer! Happy Sunday! xx
Would light brown sugar change the taste?
Hey Holly,
That will be just fine for you to use! Please let me know if you have any other questions, I hope you love this recipe! xx
I made these last night mostly because I wanted them but also because we have a Christmas party tonight, but they are so delicious!!! Highly recommend.
Hey Madelyn,
Happy Sunday!!☃️ Thanks a lot for making this recipe, I love to hear that it turned out well for you! xT