Cinnamon Roll Cookies from Cookies and Cups

Cinnamon Roll Cookies - made dough September 26, 2023 from Cookies and Cups 

Filling

1/4 cup butter, melted

1/3 cup dark brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

Cookie dough

3/4 cup butter, room temperature

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

2 teaspoons vanilla

3 tablespoons heavy cream

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

Icing

1 cup powdered sugar

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1-2 tablespoons milk

1. Filling: in a medium bowl, combine melted butter, dark brown sugar and cinnamon until evenly mixed. Set aside.
2. Cookie dough: in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together butter and granulated sugar until light and fluffy, 1-2 minutes. Add egg, vanilla and heavy cream, mixing until combined.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together baking powder, salt and flour. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture and mix on low speed until just combined.
4. On a lightly floured piece of parchment paper, roll out the dough into a 15 x 10-inch rectangle. Spread filling mixture evenly over the dough, leaving an inch around the edges. Roll from the long edge into a tight roll.
5. Cut the dough into 10 equal slices. Roll each slice into a ball, cover and freeze for 20 minutes.
6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheet with parchment paper. Evenly space 5 dough balls on the baking sheet; leave the other dough balls in the freezer while the first batch bakes.
7. Bake cookies for 15-17 minutes or until edges are golden brown and middles no longer look raw. Remove from oven and let rest on baking sheet for 5 minutes before transferring cookies to wire rack to cool completely.
8. Icing: in a small bowl, whisk together powdered sugar, melted butter and milk, adding more or less milk until desired consistency is reached. Dip or drizzle cooled cookies with icing.

This is meant to be the cookie version of a cinnamon roll. You make the cookie dough, roll out to a rectangle, spread with a cinnamon sugar mixture, roll up into a log like you do when making cinnamon rolls and slice. Unlike with real cinnamon rolls, you roll each slice into a dough ball and bake like any other cookie dough.

Because you roll the slices into balls, the cinnamon filling is randomly disbursed in each ball, depending on the roll. Fortunately the cinnamon doesn't leak out even when exposed. I did do the swirling trick to tidy up some of the (minor) cinnamon leakage.

Then it's back to the cinnamon roll similarities with a frosting for the cookies.

It's a good concept and this was a pretty good cookie. If you want it to be closer to an actual cinnamon roll, you could go with more of a cream cheese frosting and/or sprinkle some ground cinnamon on top of the cookies.

The taste test cookie I kept for myself before giving the rest away was the end of the cookie log so it didn't have as much of the cinnamon filling. So my taste test cookie was more like a vanilla butter cookie with a little cinnamon. Still good though.