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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
Would gluten free flour work with these ?
Hi Emma,
Yes, you can use an equal amount of gluten free flour. Please let me know if you have any other questions, I hope you love this recipe! xx
I was so excited to make these as I have made several of your cookie and other recipes before! I followed instructions. Some cookies turned out with chunks melted on bottom. Others the “chunks” would melt odd and turn the cookie flat/crisp wherever the chunk was in the cookie. What do you suggest I do differently?! I’ve never had an issue with your recipes before.
Hi Courtney,
Thanks for giving these cookies a try, so sorry to hear you had some issues! Next time, I would make sure you are only using about 1/2 teaspoon of the cinnamon. I hope this helps! xx
So excited to try this recipe!! I am planning on making these but put them in a pan to cut after baking. If I do what size pan would you recommend and bake time? I thought you mentioned you had tried that too but can’t find the post:)
Hi Jodi,
Sorry, are you saying you want to make these as a cookie bar? I don’t have the instructions for that just yet, so I would recommend making these as cookies for now:) I hope you love the recipe! xx
These were DELICIOUS! They put regular snickerdoodles to shame! The cinnamon sugar nuggets are just fantastic. I will be baking these whenever I am in the cinnamon mood! Oh, and I didn’t even frost them, they are delicious without!
Hey Diane,
Happy Friday!!❄️🧑🎄 I appreciate you making this recipe and sharing your review, so glad to hear it turned out well for you! xx
Delicious flavor! However, I’m not sure why but mine came out very cakey & didn’t spread much. Still yummy though!
Hey Christina,
Happy Friday!!❄️🧑🎄 I appreciate you making this recipe and sharing your review, so glad to hear it turned out well for you! Did you try tapping your baking sheet on the counter? xx
Oooohhhh…these were just heavenly! The only problem is that they disappeared too fast. 🙂 Really just the perfect cinnamon cookie, and with a few clever twists to boot. I will have to make another batch for Christmas – thanks, Tieghan!
Hey Marina,
Perfect!! ⛄️ I love to hear that this recipe was a winner, thanks so much for trying it out! xx
i just made these for a work event tomorrow and they turned out perfectly. i followed the recipe exactly and didn’t make any modifications. they are really buttery and chewy and delicious and really sweet – i went really light on the icing and added holiday sprinkles. great recipe!
Hey Andrea,
Perfect!! ⛄️ I love to hear that this recipe was a winner, thanks so much for trying it out! xx
Wonderful amazing and unique twist on cinnamon cookies! The brown butter and delicious icing put them in a league of their own. The texture was perfect, soft, chewy, and decadent. Thank you for consistently hitting it out of the park, and taking it to the next level of goodness. Will make these again and again.
Hey Andrea,
Perfect!! ⛄️ I love to hear that this recipe was a winner, thanks so much for trying it out! xx
These cookies are incredible!! I’m making them for a second time this week to share with friends and family.
Hey Jackie,
Perfect!! ⛄️ I love to hear that this recipe was a winner, thanks so much for trying it out! xx
Stealing the food Charlaton’s recipies The BEST Cinnamon Roll Cookies. You should be ashamed of yourself.
Not even remotely the same, Holly/Megan. Learn to read, and please stop with the multiple troll accounts and harassment.
Please get a life and stop with this absurd bullsh!t. It has already been established that a.) There are 175,000,000 similar cinnamon cookie recipes in a google search b.) Nobody owns a recipe c.) Tieghan never saw that other recipe that you seem to be fixated on, which is actually completely different.
Different ingredient ratios
Different sugars/use thereof
No icing in the other recipe
No browned butter in the other recipe
Cream of tartar in the other recipe, none here
The other recipe is a cinnamon roll cookie – they aren’t even going for the same concept
You are reaching so bad trying to make this a thing that it’s laughable. Stop making a pathetic ass of yourself. Do you realize how stupid you look creating multiple fake accounts to keep claiming over and over again that these two completely different recipes are the same? They are absolutely not, and even if they were, there are 174,999,999 other people you could go harass for making cinnamon cookies. Maybe go do that. Bye.
I totally apologize. I can see now that the two recipes are not even close. My bad. I’m ashamed of myself for jumping to conclusions like this. I should have read more carefully.
Literacy isn’t your strong suit is it?
This is an exact copy of the The Food Charlatan that was posted a year ago, you should delete this, shame on you. https://thefoodcharlatan.com/cinnamon-roll-cookies/
Not even remotely the same, Holly/Megan. Learn to read, and please stop with the multiple troll accounts and harassment.
Megan here. I wrote this too. Again I’m sorry for how wrong I was. Please feel free to delete my rude comments.
“Exact copy”?! Can you even read? They are completely different, down to ingredients, measurements, frosting vs. none. You’re batshit delusional. I’m embarrassed for you.
I made these and the taste was great! Unfortunately, they were sticky and turned out flat. I see in the comments that people are talking about molasses, but I don’t see it in the recipe. Can someone please suggest what I can do to perfect these cookies? Thank you in advance!
Hi Destinie,
Thanks for trying the recipe!! No molasses in this recipe:) They should be flat…what do you mean sticky? Was there anything you adjusted in the recipe? Let me know how I can help! xx
I was so excited to make these cookies but they turned out really cakey and also spread too much…I followed the recipe exactly so I’m not sure what went wrong!
I had the same issue tonight!!
Hi Rach,
Thanks for giving these cookies a try and sharing your feedback. Sorry for my confusion here, but how were they cake-y and spread too much? If they spread my guess is that they would not be cake-y but flat and crispy. Is it possible your dough was too warm? Let me know how I can help! xx
My thoughts exactly – it definitely wouldn’t be both.
The cookies came out ideal for me. A little gooey, soft and moist. The brown butter added incredible richness and flavor. A truly unique idea. Brilliant!
Thanks so much Jay!!
Do we need to refrigerate these if we keep them for a few days since the icing has cream cheese and milk in it??
Hi Kelsey,
Nope, you can store these in an airtight container on the counter:) Please let me know if you have any other questions! xT
As usual, another huge win for Half Baked Harvest recipes. These cookies are delicious and loaded with flavor and complexity despite being relatively simple in preparation and ingredients. My three young sons made these together for my MIL birthday celebration today and I doubt there are any left at end of the night.
Hey Ashley,
Wonderful!! Thanks a bunch for making this recipe and sharing your feedback! Love to hear that it was enjoyed! Happy Holidays!🎄🎁