Soft and delightful cinnamon sugar pillow cookies – with a surprise filling!
These pillow soft cookies are like:
A cinnamon roll
A sugar cookie
And a cream cheese danish… all in one cookie!
Also Try These Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies
It’s time for the holiday-cookie-season contest to commence.
The winner is the person who crams the most cookie-baking into this one short month.
Or really… the real winner is the one who eats the most cookies.
Today’s recipe is an updated version of a popular cookie recipe I first posted back in 2012.
This new version of the recipe is easier to follow and makes a bigger batch, because you will definitely want more of these cookies once you try them!
If you haven’t started baking cookies this holiday season, why not begin today?
These light and fluffy homemade sugar cookies are always a big hit with both vegans and non-vegans, and they’re the perfect holiday cookie to give as a gift.
But if you do want to send them to others, I’d definitely recommend making extra so you can keep some for yourself!
Above – watch me make the cookies!
Cinnamon Sugar Pillow Cookies
Cinnamon Sugar Pillow Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cup spelt, white, or oat flour
- 3/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup sugar, unrefined if desired, or xylitol
- 6 tbsp oil or melted buttery spread (70g)
- 1 1/2 tbsp milk of choice
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- equal parts cinnamon + sugar or xylitol, if desired for coating
- filling ingredients, below
Instructions
For the filling (which you can omit if you want non-stuffed cookies), combine 4 tsp powdered sugar or Sugar-Free Powdered Sugar with 1/4 cup cream cheese (such as TJ’s vegan), gently warmed or brought to room temperature so it’s soft enough to stir or beat with the powdered sugar until smooth.
In a mixing bowl, combine first five ingredients, and stir well. Stir in the oil, milk, and vanilla to form a cookie dough. Only add extra milk if it’s still too dry after a full minute of stirring. (I’ve never had to add more than the 1 1/2 tbsp milk.) Smush into a giant ball with your hands, or transfer dough to a plastic bag and smush into a ball once the dough is inside the bag. Now roll into balls. Break balls in half, flatten each half a bit and add a little filling to one half, then place the other half on top and re-roll. Chill 30 minutes or up to a day. Preheat oven to 325 F. Roll balls in cinnamon sugar, place on a baking tray, and bake on the center rack 11 minutes. They’ll look underdone when you take them out, so let them cool about 10 minutes on the baking tray and they will firm up as they cool.
More Holiday Cookie Recipes:
Snowball Cookies – 60 calories each
Breakfast Cookies – Super Healthy Recipe
Healthy gingerbread? I know it’s pretty typical, but I haven’t found any great healthier versions of it anywhere…
or HEALTHY NANAIMO BARS! I know you can do it!
Have you ever seen the dark chocolate orange in orange raping like at trader joes? Well dark chocolate orange cookie!!! You chop up the chocolate orange and add to your cookie dough!!
I cannot get over how brilliant these are! While I’m not a big cream cheese lover myself, I would most definitely bring them to a party. Heck, vegan cream cheese probably grosses me out quite a bit less (do you even want to know how cheese gets that texture? ew, no), I might even found a new cookie that I love.
As for unusual cookies, Christmas makes me think of things like cranberries, peppermint, eggnog, chocolate, oranges…maybe a fruity/minty cookie? That doesn’t sound too bad… Looking forward to the rest of your holiday recipes!
Soft maple cookies with bits of bacon
This sounds awesome! Maple and Bacon make a great combination.
And the best part is Bacon Bits are often vegan!
just a new fan of yours, and hmm, my family doesn’t like too much sugar, so i don’t think i’ll be making this, anyways, why not try baking some healthy gingerbread cookies? i would really, really, really love to try it out if you have a recipe for healthier version of gingerbread cookies, anyways wish you good health! 🙂
http://cookiesandcups.com/cream-cheese-filled-snickerdoodles/
just sayin’.
I know! It seems like Katie complains a lot about other bloggers stealing her recipes…she never links to other recipes, and it’s clear that her ideas are inspired from others often. Maybe inspired by a combination of multiple bloggers, but no one else ever gets credit.
What are you talking about? I have seen plenty of her posts that start out, “This recipe was inspired by…” Maybe you should actually read some of the recipes before commenting!
It’s not like Katie outright said she came up with these on her own.. And also, these cookies are vegan, and the ones you linked are not. Obviously on food blogs there are going to be similar recipes, it doesn’t mean they were “stolen.” I mean do you know how many cookie dip recipes there are out there?!
In her own “rules” she tells people they aren’t allowed to repost her recipes, even if they change ingredients. They must link to her page instead. If she asks this of people, she should be able to give the same courtesy to others, since there are times that she changes ingredients from existing recipes.
Ok… this is crazy. I just now saw all these comments and clicked over to the link the commenter left. That recipe isn’t anything like mine, and it definitely wasn’t my inspiration, as I’d never even seen it until now! If I’m inspired by another recipe, I specifically state it in the post. I’m pretty sure there are very few recipes that are 100% unique on the internet anymore, but just because two recipes are similar doesn’t mean one person copied the other. It most likely means they just both had the same idea.
Grow up, Greg/Dee.
Just sayin’.
There’s a difference between stealing a recipe and having a similar one. Just because both are snickerdoodles filled with cream cheese, doesn’t mean they’re anything alike, nor that anyone “copied” anyone else. I’m sure if we go into cookbooks from years before the above blooger made this cookie, we’ll find a similar recipe too. The point is > Katie’s cookie is a different shape, has different ingredients, cooking instructions, etc.
From the food blog alliance:
The rules that most cookbook authors and food writers follow are these:
1. If you’re modifying someone else’s recipe, it should be called “adapted from“.
2. If you change a recipe substantially, you may be able to call it your own. But if it’s somewhat similar to a publisher recipe, you should say it’s “inspired by“, which means that you used else’s recipe for inspiration, but changed it substantially.
3. If you change three ingredients, you can in most instances call the recipe yours.
Pretty sure OVER three ingredients are different between the two.
I agree. This is way different than the recipe posted. However, when I looked at Katie’s rules for people wanting to post hers, she tells them they aren’t allowed to even if they have changed ingredients. It just seems a little greedy in the blog world to not allow others to even post the recipe if they change ingredients if there is so much overlap anyway.
hmm- just looked at her FAQ :
“I do ask, though, that you link back to the recipe instead of posting it on your site, even if you’ve made minor changes.”
But those are not substantial changes, as mentioned above. If I was to look at one of Katie’s Recipes, get an idea, and make, let’s say, brownie cookies, completely full of dairy, with a dash of cayenne, etc etc. I could totally put that on my own site. I think Katie’s referring to someone who uses 1 cup of soy milk versus 3/4, or changes 2 apples to 1. That’s minor, and as such, I could see her wanting someone to link back
Yes, Liz has it right. If you make big changes to one of my recipes, then it’s now YOUR recipe. 🙂 You don’t even need to link back to mine at all if you don’t want to.
It takes a lot of trials (and often in my case, a lot of error!) to come up with a good recipe–figuring out the best amounts of liquid, fat, and even seemingly-minor things like salt. What I’m talking about in my FAQ page is if someone takes the recipe, changes just the amount of salt or does something like subs raisins for chocolate chips, and then posts the recipe as his/her own without having to do any of the hard work. That’s why I say “minor changes” on the faq page.
You should try to make a pie flavored cookie! Or even an eggnog flavor
Ultra fluffy cookies are my favorite, and once December hits, I cannot have enough cookies in my life. Thanks Katie!
Yummy!! These cookies look devine! I have to try them out! I have baked so many cookies this weekend, yet I love doing it! Yours on my list to make next! Have a great day!
What about Yule Logs or Coal Cookies? They don’t appear particularly scrumptious, but these made me giggle: http://www.morestylethancash.com/2011/11/coal-cookies-for-christmas-with-printable-label.html
Fruitcake cookies (I dunno… I like a nicely spiced fruitcake, others might not be fans); pistachio/cranberry/white chocolate; apricot white chocolate; blueberry cheesecake; cranberry/hazelnut; maple/brown sugar/cinnamon; Starbucks white chocolate peppermint mocha.
I’ve always wanted to find a recipe for Egg Nog Cookies….in keeping with the holiday theme. 🙂
Little pillows of deliciousness! These look amazing!
it’s not new combination but i would also love to see a healthier version of gingerbread cookies and speculaas biscuits please!!:)
One of my FB friends mentioned a hazelnut pie crust — I googled it an found it to be the most amazing recipe and can honestly say I will NEVER make normal pie crust again. So, now that I’m addicted to hazelnuts, hazel nut coconut cookies.
yeah roasted hanzelnut and cocnut it is soooo delicious:) am totally additced to it- today i had it for may breakfast- roasted hanzelnut powder,cocnut and oats + one stevia 🙂 Yummylicious 😉
I just made these this morning, using regular low-fat cream cheese for the filling, all-purpose flour, and canola oil. I did have to add more almond milk than the amount in the recipe – I just kept adding it bit by bit until the dough could stick together enough to form a ball. They turned out great – after freezing the balls for 15 minutes, they kept their shape so the cookies were nice and tall and round! I loved the cinnamony sugar cookie taste, and the filling inside made them more special (and tasty)!
My gramma used to make a cookie like this, only it was a chocolate cookie filled with PB. Make that!
Also, I had potato chip cookies once and they were AMAZING. Salty, sweet, buttery, and strangely delicious.
I followed you on Pinterest and repinned your amazing crustless pumpkin pie! <3
You sure do make this recipe hard to resist! Three delicious treats rolled into one!? You’re a genius! I’ll have to give these a go as soon as I can get into the kitchen!
Ooh these look like soft yummy goodness. I’d really like a naturally sweetened version (ie no sugar) of the festive cookies you see around – the ones covered in red and green sprinkles or with red and green Smarties or M&Ms in…I always feel so left out not being able to have those and they look so festive! I’m just way too busy right now to get in the kitchen and experiment. I know that’s not really a ‘crazy’ flavour though…
These are so SO good! I was out of both coconut and vegetable oil, so I wound up subbing in butter instead (obviously won’t work for vegans), and they still turned out amazing! I also mixed in some mini chocolate chips in the cream cheese filling, because just about everything is made more delicious with chocolate chips. I highly, highly recommend—these are definitely going to be a staple of my Christmas cookie making 🙂
I could go for some chai tea cookies 8) or maybe some lavender cookies (these sound gross, but lavender icing is actually REALLY yummy! It’s not too perfumey or overpowering) Other ideas:
-oreo mint (not very creative, but sounds good lol)
-maybe something fruity like strawberry-kiwi or cherry-lime, OR cranberry-orange!!!
-vanilla-coffee? -this is weird, but it might be good
-popcorn, actually I think kettlecorn cookies would be better, the sweet and salty thing
-marshmellow/chocolate
I hope you love these ideas, CCK! I adore your blog soooo much! Thanks for sparking my interest in blog-following! I have to ask, is it difficult to get a blog started and to get followers? I am interested in starting one, but don’t really know where to start! Thanks (:
OH YES.
KETTLECORN.
Also, with the vanilla coffee: yum! Maybe you could do a coupple different types of coffee inspired cookies, like latte/expresseo/cappuchino cookies. Or black coffe cookies swirled with cream and sugar cookie dough!
ERMAHGHERD.
BLACK COFFEE COOKIE DOUGH. SWIRLED WITH CREAM AND SUGAR COOKIE DOUGH. IT IS COFFEE WITH SUGAR AND CREAM. ER. MAH. GHERD.
I’d better stop now. 😉
Wow, that is inspired, the coffee/cream cookie. And a kettle corn cookie, I could get behind that.
Thanks for all the ideas!
Yeah, it takes a few years… I’ve been blogging for a long time, and for the first year I think I had maybe 5-10 readers ;).
I love that you titled these pillow cookies! If I used these as pillows though, I can assure you that not only would it be really messy but these would be gone in a heartbeat.
You should make a green cookie by adding spinach to sugar cookies and then add pistachios and and craisins for the holiday flavors and white chocolate chips for sweetness.
cookie suggestion – I have been making this habanero jelly recipe and it is sooooo good
http://www.themeaningofpie.com/2011/07/habanero-jelly-2/
I plan to try it as a thumbprint cookie using the pepper jelly! What do you think?
can’t wait to try these. they look yummy!
Hmm. Soda flavors
A bit unusual, I know, but I think it’d be an interesting idea to at least try out
Root beer extract
Cherry extract
Orange extract
etc.
I just made these gluten free by substituting 3/4 cup sorghum flour plus 1/4 teaspoon xanthan gum for the flour. Used 2 Tablespoons of plain unsweetened soy milk ( I find most gf flours are drier than wheat flour). Otherwise followed your recipe. The dough was soft and a little crumbly. I got 18 small balls of dough, flattened them and added the cream cheese filling, they did not roll into a ball very well so I pinched the edges together as well as I could and sprinkled the cookies with the cinnamon sugar. Baked for 15 minutes ( at an altitude of 5 thousand feet most things take longer to bake here). A couple are very crackled on top with the filling showing through, so had to eat the worst looking one. Very tasty and worth the trouble of forming them. Thanks for the recipe.
These look amazing as usual. I get excited about cookies. You could be inspired by crazy macaron flavours and transfer them to a cookie. I read an old post on rasberricupcakes.com the other day where she tried about 50 different flavours and some of them sounded incredible. Avocado, burnt toast and butter, truffle.
I love an indian dessert called Gulab Jamun. I would love a cookie that reminded me of that taste. I think it has rosewater and honey.
I cant think of an Indian dessert that I have ever NOT loved. I might very well need to try this guy- anything with rosewater always tastes perfumey and yummy 🙂 Have you ever tried gajar ka halwa? I had it once before I was vegan, and it was amazeballs. 😀
I would love a cookie with the same sort of banana chai flavour as a drink you did, I can’t remember what it was called but it had the chai spices, a frozen banana and milk of choice from memory.
Another cookie flavour I would like is a fruit mince pie flavour, the dried fruits, the stewed apple, a touch of citrus peel, the spices, yum.
These sound great, am definitely giving them a go once I have all the bits.
Ah, the Chai-Nana Shake! That one is definitely yummy. 🙂
Chocolate orange, Chocolate oranges are a traditional Christmas gift in my family.
Chocolate Salted Caramel Pretzel (this isn’t creative, but I don’t remember seeing a recipe for it)
Chocolate covered cranberry, I made muffins with a can of cranberry sauce once, they turned out really moist and delicious.
This isn’t a flavor but.. Waffle cookies! I’ve heard you can make cookies in a regular waffle iron! Just some ideas.
I LOVE your blog! Especially the oatmeal recipes 🙂 Recently I have been craving cinnamon buns…how about a healthy cinnamon bun recipe? 🙂
Going in the cookbook… but I’m pretty sure I will post it on the blog as well, as soon as I’m allowed!
Candy Cane cookies? Fruit cake cookies? Rum and Raisin? Pudding-type cookies?These look yum by the way!
Definitely want to see your version of the potato chip & chocolate cookie. Can’t see how that could possibly be made healthy, but could be worth a shot 🙂
-Gab
These were yum
But I was wondering if u know a recipe that is sugar free for meringue or French macaroons
I don’t, but it is on my to-do list!
I have several ideas.
A margerita cupcake! This one has a story. See, one time I was messing around with some weird ingrediants and had a (genius) idea (well, that and because I had just gone grocery store impulse shopping andbought a 5 pound bag of limes while Trader-Joe’s-Impulse-Shopping ;-D), so I mixed up some cupcake batter and went crazy with tequilla, lime, green melted sprinkles, and white crystal-y sugar decorations. Thus, margerita cupcakes were born, much to my enthusiasm. Anyways, I was thinking you could somehow make a cookie out of this and post it in the dead of winter, when everyone wants summer to just hurry up and arrive. Y’know, to give us hope 😀
Actually, now I am so preocupied with the idea of a margerita cookie, I cant remember what my other ideas were. Hmmmm…;-)
And happy cookie season! 😀
Wait. I take back my previous statement of not knowing any other ideas.
French merangues!
I have no clue how these would be possible to vegan-ify, considering that they are basically just really, really fluffy eg whites whipped up and baked into cookies. But before I became a vegan really recently (I had been a vegetarian with dairy before that for about 7 years), these cookies were my favorites. So crispy and fluffy and light and melt-in-your-mouth-delicious! And I know that if anyone could make these babies, it would be you, CCK! 🙂
I’d love to see a sushi cookie! Coconut as the rice, chocolate as the seaweed… Funky and yummy!
I like the idea of Starbucks-inspired cookies, especially the Earl Grey latte one! Pumpkin spice latte cookies?
Also, I had some really good fig butter from Trader Joe’s today with some dark chocolate melted in my oatmeal. That might make a yummy cookie.
These look FANTASTIC! Love the cream cheese surprise inside! As far as interesting flavor combos for Christmas cookies, I always think the Luna Cafe blog has the craziest and yummiest cookie flavor combos! Here’s the link, just scroll down to “Cookies”:
http://thelunacafe.com/recipes/recipes-by-category-2/
I just made the cookies they’re so amazing. I tried to double to recipe but it ended up making the same amount I have no idea how I did that. I had to add more oil and milk than in the recipe my dough turned out very dry for some reason. And next time I’m gonna need to make more filling. But overall these cookies are so delicious. I’m definitely making them again!
These looks so soft and ooey gooey! Yum! How about some sort of goji berry/pistachio cookie? It would be delicious and beautiful, I bet!
Hi there- I was wondering how to stuff the cookies? I have to idea how to put the filling in! Thanks!
Just put a little inside each cookie, with a spoon.
katie can you invent a christmas cookie useing flavor like maybe some raw ginger , molases or marzipan i think that would be great or even doing the standard decorating sugar cookies would be an awesome vegan recipe
Hi Katie–I just love your website and I enjoy seeing all the recipes you share. Thank you so much!
You asked about cookie ingredients—-have you ever heard or tasted Rumchatta? It is a liquoer that tastes like cinnamon toast crunch milk–it’s delicious. They have a cupcake recipe out there–but since you are so creative I wondered if you could come up with a cookie recipe for it.
Would love to try one if you come up with it and I know it could be a hit.
If you try one–please let me know!
thanks and happy cookie baking and happy holidays!
Theresa
I will have to look for it!
Oh, these are definitely getting made in my kitchen!
Hey Katie,
I tried this and it looks like powder, not even mealy enough to be compared to a pie crust and barely even a crumble topping. This needs much more liquid. Did you mean tsp of milk or cups or tbsp? Something’s missing…..
thanks in advance,
jackie
It doesn’t need more liquid. I’ve made them twice and both times came out perfect.
Smitten Kitchen’s new cookbook has a recipe for buttered popcorn cookies…
Would it work to stuff the cookies with something like a piece of chocolate?
very very crumbly, needs more milk and oil, also 3/4 cup of ww flour is 90g and not 120, so my dough was doubly crumbly for the extra flour 🙁
The recipe doesn’t call for whole wheat flour.
Yummy. This is my new favorite cookie!
Next I want to try stuffing it with chocolate. 🙂
I had some trouble forming the cookies and filling them the first time I tried this recipe, but I just finished a second batch that worked much better thanks to a little trick that I tried. I made the filling first and made little drops of it on a cookie sheet and popped them in the freezer until they got firm enough to use as filling without getting so messy! They do thaw quickly, but if you have a good pace, this is a pretty good way to make filling the cookies easier.
Made these with King Arthur gf flour. They were yummy!
For some reason, the filling kind of disappeared after I baked them. I had a similar problem with the inside out chocolate pumpkin cookies. Any ideas as to why that might be?
Hmmm… I’ve never had that problem. Maybe the gf flour absorbs the cream cheese?
I wanted to make these for weeks but I was so stressed, so all december long I had no christmas cookies. Now my best friend gave those to me together with the healthy poptart babies and… oh my! They’re perfect! Your blog is the best, Katie 🙂
I just bake some… they are quick, easy and delicious!!!! perfect for a 2 yo mom!!!! Thx
Didn’t see this post until today..but, I was with my son at the store just today and we thought rootbeer cookies sounded fantastic…and weird!
These cookies are PHENOMENAL!
Oh my goodness, Katie, they are like little dreamy sugar cookie pillows, and the filling is a lovely surprise in each cookie. Thank you so much for this recipe. It is the first one of many of yours that I have bookmarked, and they taste even better than they look! 🙂
Hi Katie, i was just thinking could I substitute the cream-cheese for chocolate?
just made these pillows today, they are heavenly and not too sweet!
I substituted apple sauce (3tbsp) for the oil and used 4tbsp skim milk. Delicious. I think I will try filling them with a mix of ricotta and strawberry next time!