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: 2020 Holiday Cookie Box 2021 Holiday Cookie Box Holly Jolly Santa Cookies Easy Vanilla Bean Christmas Lights Cookies Easy Hot Chocolate Lace Cookies Christmas Monster 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!
