Coffee Cake Cookies from The Palatable Life

Coffee Cake Cookies - made dough December 24, 2022 from The Palatable Life

Cinnamon Dough

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 cup dark brown sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour (I added another 1/4 cup for 2 1/2 cups total as dough was too soft)

Streusel

1/4 cup butter, softened

1/4 cup brown sugar

1/3 - 1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

pinch of salt

Icing

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon milk

splash of vanilla extract

1. Cookie dough: combine butter, oil and dark brown sugar, beating until smooth, about 2 minutes. Add egg and vanilla; beat to combine. 
2. In a separate bowl, whisk together cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, salt and flour. Add to butter mixture and mix on low speed until just combined.
3. Streusel: combine butter, brown sugar, 1/3 cup flour, cinnamon and salt in a separate bowl. The mixture should stick together when squeezed but also crumble when you run your fingers through it. If it's still too wet, add flour, one tablespoon at a time, until it crumbles.
4. Portion cookie dough into golf-ball-size dough balls. Make an indent in the center of each cookie. Cover and chill or freeze for several hours or overnight.
5. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Remove frozen cookies and fill indents generously with streusel. Evenly space on baking sheets.
6. Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes. Halfway through baking, check the oven and if your streusel is't enough because the cookies have spread, remove from oven and quickly add more streusel to the center of each cookie. Return to oven to finish baking, Remove from oven when edges are set and let rest on baking sheets for 5 minutes before transferring to wire rack.
7. Meanwhile, make the icing: combine the powdered sugar, milk and vanilla in a small bow. Whisk until smooth and runny. Drizzle over lukewarm cookies.

The original recipe mixed up as dough that was too soft and sticky for easy handling so I ended up nearly another 1/4 cup of flour. You want the dough to be pliable but not dry or too soft. Go by feel and see if you need to add more (or less) flour to yours.

Once I had it to the consistency I wanted, it was easier to form into dough balls and use my tart tamper (yes, that's a thing) to make the center indents. The dough did crack around the edges even though the dough wasn't too dry. If that happens, just pinch the cracked edges together to keep the indented dough disc intact.

I wasn't baking these right away so I froze them and baked them later. Above are the unbaked (still frozen) cookies filled as much as possible with the streusel. But when I checked the cookies halfway through the baking time, they had spread enough such that the streusel amounts looked miniscule. No problem - I took them out and quickly added more streusel to fill the gaps. Otherwise they would have looked anemic. 

As you can see, it mostly worked. I could've added more streusel and mounded it more on the top (the recipe makes plenty of streusel so no need to skimp) but I was trying to work quickly and not have them be out of the oven too long.

You can see they still baked up thick enough. If I hadn't added the extra flour and hadn't baked from frozen dough, I think these would have been flat cookies with the indents baked right out. 

If you want the icing to melt more into the cookie, drizzle over the cookies while they're still lukewarm.

If you want the icing to be more prominent, drizzle after the cookies have cooled completely.

Taste-wise I think these were good. Although I think I could've baked them a little longer for them to have a more cakey instead of dense texture. They taste amazing when warm so even if you serve them after they've cooled, pop them into the microwave for about 10-12 seconds and enjoy warm coffee cake in cookie form.