Easy cinnamon roll cookies! Bites of cinnamon goodness in a soft chewy cookie drizzled with a sweet icing.

These cinnamon roll cookies are like a snickerdoodle but with pockets of cinnamon filling instead of a sugar coating. 

Unlike other cinnamon roll cookies out there, these don’t have the spiral shape of cinnamon rolls. I do roll the dough but only to evenly distribute the filling without making the cookie look completely homogeneous in color. Like I said, “pockets” of cinnamon so you get a burst of flavor!

Ingredients Needed for Cinnamon Roll Cookies:

• Pantry basics: all purpose flour, baking soda, salt
• Granulated Sugar: you will need white sugar for the cookie dough.
• Brown Sugar: Brown sugar makes up the cinnamon filling. I used light, but you can use dark as well.
• Egg, egg yolk: Eggs give cookies their structure and the extra yolk adds richness and softness.
• Vanilla Extract: Use quality pure extract for the best flavor. No imitation extract.
• Cream of Tartar: This gives the cookie the slight tang of a snickerdoodle.
• Cardamom: A little bit of ground cardamom adds flavor that compliments the cinnamon. It’s totally optional if you don’t have any or just aren’t a fan.

How to Make Cinnamon Roll Cookies:

Start by preheating your oven to 350°F and positioning the rack in the center. While the oven warms up, whisk together the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, salt, and optional cardamom in a medium sized bowl. Set this dry mixture aside.

In a large mixing bowl, or the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the butter and granulated sugar. Cream together until the mixture becomes light and fluffy, which should take a few minutes. Add the vanilla, egg and then the yolk, mixing after each addition until fully incorporated. 

With the mixer on low speed, gradually add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients. Mix just until the dough comes together but be careful not to overmix, as that can lead to tough cookies.

In a small bowl, make the filling by stirring together the melted butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon until smooth and well combined.

Next, roll the dough out into a rectangle about ¼ inch thick. You can do this directly on a large sheet of parchment paper or on a well-floured surface. Once rolled out, spread the cinnamon filling evenly over the surface using an offset spatula, making sure to go all the way to the edges.

Gently roll the dough into a log, starting from one of the shorter sides. Don’t worry if the roll isn’t perfect, the goal here is to swirl the filling through the dough, not to create a uniform spiral cookie.

Now, fold the log back into itself and place it in a bowl. From there, scoop out tablespoon-sized portions of dough and place them on a cookie sheet, spacing and staggering them to allow room for spreading.

Bake the cookies for 8 to 10 minutes, or until they’re just turning golden around the edges. Let them cool slightly on the pan before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

For the icing, mix together the confectioner’s sugar and milk (or water) in a small bowl until smooth. Add the liquid gradually to reach a consistency that you can drizzle with. The icing can be drizzled over the cookies with a spoon or you can make a quick parchment piping bag for more control.

Storing Your Cookies:

The uncooked dough can be tightly wrapped in plastic and stored in the refrigerator for a week or frozen for up to a month in an airtight container. It’s easier to portion out the dough into balls before storing. See my post for how to freeze cookie dough for details.

Baked cookies can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for 4 days or frozen for up to 1 month.