Cinnamon Roll Cookies with a Sweet Swirl and Vanilla Glaze

Cinnamon roll cookies are a soft, buttery sugar cookie dough rolled up around a cinnamon-sugar swirl, sliced into spirals and baked until the edges just turn gold, then finished with a thin vanilla glaze. They look like miniature cinnamon rolls and taste like the middle of one, without yeast, without proofing and without waiting for anything to rise.

Cinnamon roll cookies are a slice-and-bake cookie, which makes them one of the most practical recipes on this site. The dough logs chill for an hour, or sit in the fridge for two days, or freeze for two months, and the cookies bake in twelve minutes whenever you want them. The batch in the photographs uses the simpler of the two fillings described below, a dry cinnamon sugar rather than a brown sugar paste, and a plain vanilla glaze piped in thin lines. Both versions are in the post.

Pictured: the cookies made with a sprinkled cinnamon-sugar filling and a simple vanilla glaze piped over the top. The recipe card uses a brown sugar and butter swirl with a cream cheese glaze, which is a little richer. Both are described under Variations, and the method is the same.

What Makes Cinnamon Roll Cookies Hold Their Spiral

The dough is the whole trick. It is a butter sugar cookie dough with two extra egg yolks, which makes it pliable enough to roll up tightly without cracking and rich enough to bake soft rather than crisp. A little baking powder gives it lift so each spiral puffs slightly and the swirl shows as a groove rather than a flat line.

The chill is what keeps the spiral of cinnamon roll cookies intact. A soft log squashes into an oval the moment a knife touches it, and the filling smears through the layers. An hour in the fridge firms the butter so the slices come off clean and round, and cold cookies spread less in the oven, so the swirl you cut is the swirl you get.

Cinnamon roll cookies are related to pinwheel cookies, but the filling is sugar and spice rather than a second colored dough, so the layers stay thin and the spiral is tighter, closer to a real cinnamon roll in cross-section.

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Ingredient Notes

• Butter. One cup, unsalted, softened but still cool to the touch. Butter that has gone shiny and greasy makes a dough that will not hold a roll.
• Granulated and brown sugar. Three-quarters of a cup of white and half a cup of light brown in the dough. The brown sugar keeps the cookies soft and adds a hint of caramel.
• Egg and egg yolks. One whole egg plus two yolks. The extra yolks are what make the dough flexible enough to roll tightly without cracking.
• Vanilla extract. Two teaspoons in the dough and one in the glaze.
• All-purpose flour. Two and a half cups, spooned and leveled. Too much flour and the dough cracks as it rolls.
• Baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg. A little cinnamon in the dough itself, not just the filling, so the whole cookie tastes of it. The nutmeg is a background note.
• Filling. Half a cup of brown sugar, a tablespoon and a half of cinnamon and three tablespoons of melted butter stirred into a paste. For the sprinkled version in the photos, use granulated sugar and cinnamon mixed dry, over a brushed layer of the melted butter.
• Glaze. Two ounces of cream cheese, a cup of powdered sugar, milk and vanilla. Leave out the cream cheese and use three tablespoons of milk for the plain vanilla glaze pictured.

Almost all the ground cinnamon sold in American supermarkets is cassia, which is bolder and sweeter than Ceylon cinnamon. Illinois Extension notes that cassia is the one that holds its flavor through cooking, which is exactly what you want in a baked swirl. Either works here; Ceylon is milder and more floral.

Paste Filling or Sprinkled Filling?

The brown sugar and butter paste in the recipe card bakes into a gooey, caramelized swirl inside the cinnamon roll cookies, the closest a cookie can get to the center of a cinnamon roll. It is a little messier to spread, and the logs need the full chill so the paste sets before slicing.

The sprinkled filling in the photos is quicker: brush the rectangle with melted butter, scatter an even layer of cinnamon sugar over it, and roll. The swirl is drier and a shade lighter, with a crunchier line of sugar, and the slices cut a little more cleanly. Both versions are worth making; the paste is for a plate of cookies to eat warm, and the sprinkled version is the one to stack in a tin.

How To Make Cinnamon Roll Cookies

First, beat the softened butter with both sugars for about three minutes, until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Beat in the whole egg, then the two yolks one at a time, then the vanilla. In a separate bowl whisk the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg, then add it to the butter mixture on low speed just until a soft dough forms.

Next, divide the dough in half. Put each half on a sheet of parchment and roll it into a rectangle about 10 by 8 inches and a quarter-inch thick. Trim the edges straight if you want perfectly round cookies; the trimmings can be pressed onto the next rectangle.

Then make the filling. For the paste, stir the brown sugar, cinnamon and melted butter together and spread half over each rectangle right to the long edges, leaving a half-inch bare strip along one long side. For the sprinkled version, brush the dough with the melted butter and scatter the cinnamon sugar evenly over it.

Roll, Chill and Slice

After that, starting from the long side opposite the bare strip, roll each rectangle up tightly, using the parchment to lift and guide it, and pinch the seam closed. Wrap each log in plastic and chill for at least an hour, or up to two days.

Finally, heat the oven to 350°F. Slice the chilled logs into half-inch rounds with a sharp knife, turning the log a quarter turn every few slices so it stays round, and lay them two inches apart on lined baking sheets. Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, just until the edges are barely golden. Cool on the sheet for five minutes, then move to a rack, whisk the glaze until smooth, and drizzle or pipe it over the cooled cookies.

How To Tell When Cinnamon Roll Cookies Are Done

Pull them early, because the sheet keeps cooking them. Done cinnamon roll cookies look slightly underdone in the oven: the edges have just turned pale gold, the tops are matte rather than shiny, and the centers still look soft. They finish setting on the hot sheet during the five-minute rest, and that is what keeps the middles tender.

If the whole cookie is golden, or the swirl has darkened, they have gone a minute or two too long and will be crisp all the way through once cool. Still good, but not the soft cinnamon roll texture you are after. Twelve minutes is the outside limit for half-inch slices in a 350°F oven.

The other check is the spiral. A properly chilled cookie holds a clear swirl with a defined groove; one that spread flat with a blurred swirl was sliced from a log that was not cold enough. The fix is another twenty minutes in the fridge before the next tray goes in.

Make It Ahead

Cinnamon roll cookies are built for making ahead. The wrapped logs keep in the fridge for two days and in the freezer for two months. Slice frozen logs straight from the freezer with a sharp knife, let the rounds sit on the sheet for ten minutes while the oven heats, and add a minute to the bake.

Baked, unglazed cookies keep for a week in a tin and can be glazed the day you serve them, which is the route to take when the cookies have to travel. For a cookie exchange or a holiday tray, bake them a day ahead and glaze in the morning so the lines are crisp and white.

Storing Cinnamon Roll Cookies

Let the glaze set fully, about an hour, before stacking, or the lines smear and the cookies stick together in the tin. Cinnamon roll cookies with the plain vanilla glaze keep in an airtight container at room temperature for five days. With the cream cheese glaze, keep them in the fridge after the first day and bring them out twenty minutes before serving. A slice of bread in the tin keeps them soft.

Baked cookies freeze well, glazed or not, for up to three months in a single layer with parchment between. Thaw at room temperature for half an hour. The glaze may lose a little of its shine but sets again as the cookies come to room temperature.

Variations and Substitutions

Sprinkled filling and vanilla glaze (pictured). Brush each rectangle with the melted butter, then sprinkle over half a cup of granulated sugar mixed with a tablespoon and a half of cinnamon. Glaze with a cup of powdered sugar whisked with three tablespoons of milk and a teaspoon of vanilla, piped in thin lines from a bag with the corner snipped.

Cream cheese swirl. Beat two ounces of cream cheese into the paste filling for a tangier center, closer to the cinnamon roll coffee cake.

Brown butter glaze. Brown the three tablespoons of butter for the filling, then use a tablespoon of it in the glaze in place of some of the milk.

Maple. Replace the milk in the glaze with maple syrup and add a pinch of salt.

Pumpkin spice. Swap the cinnamon in the filling for pumpkin pie spice. It pairs with pumpkin cinnamon rolls on an autumn table.

Dairy-free. Vegan butter in the dough and filling, and the plain vanilla glaze made with oat milk.

What to Serve with Cinnamon Roll Cookies

Coffee, first and last. Cinnamon roll cookies are a breakfast cookie in spirit and they belong next to a mug, with a glass of cold milk as the alternative for anyone under ten. On a holiday cookie tray, put them with something crisp and plain, like the almond biscotti, and something chocolate, like the chocolate chip pudding cookies, so the spice has contrast.

They are also a very good gift. Stack six in a cellophane bag once the glaze has set, tie it, and they will still be soft three days later. A log of unbaked dough wrapped in parchment, with the baking time written on the label, is an even better gift for a friend who bakes.

Cinnamon Roll Cookies FAQ

More Questions About Slice-and-Bake Cookies

Cinnamon roll cookies give you the best part of a cinnamon roll in twelve minutes from a log in the freezer, which is a very good thing to have waiting in December. If a soft, chewy cookie is the mood, the butterscotch cookies are the next batch to make.