A classic sugar cookie, a snickerdoodle, and a cinnamon streusel coffee cake combine to make these unbelievably delicious vanilla-glazed coffee cake cookies!
Preheat and prep: preheat your oven to 350°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper.
Stir together dries: use a fork to stir together the streusel’s sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a small bowl.
Mix in butter: add melted butter to dries and use a fork to blend until large crumbs form and there are no more dry patches in the mixture. Set aside.
TO MAKE THE CINNAMON SUGAR:
Combine ingredients: stir together the ½ cup sugar and cinnamon in a separate small bowl and set aside.
TO MAKE THE COOKIES:
Cream butter, sugar, and vanilla: cream together the butter, 1 ¼ cups sugar, and vanilla extract for 1-2 minutes until light and fluffy on medium-high speed using a hand or stand mixer.
Beat in the eggs: add in the eggs, and beat for about 1 minute on medium-high until the batter is smooth, well-blended, and slightly fluffy (it’ll look a little like cake batter here).
Mix in dries: stir together flour, baking powder and salt in a small bowl until blended. Add that dry mix to the batter, and mix on low speed just until fully combined, about 30 seconds. A smooth, soft dough should form.
Scoop and coat: scoop dough into 1"-1.5” round balls, using about 2 tablespoons of dough per cookie for around 2 dozen cookies total (an ice cream scoop works well for easy portioning). Roll dough balls between your hands to fully round (if not using an ice cream scoop), then promptly roll in the cinnamon sugar until fully coated.*2
Tray and thumbprint: place cookies on prepared baking sheets, at least 2” apart. Use your thumb to create a depression in the center of the dough balls, leaving a thin layer of dough at the bottom of the depression (in other words, don’t make a full hole, just a deep indent).
Add streusel: generously pile up the streusel in the thumbprint and on top of the cookie as well.*3 You should use all the streusel by the time all the cookies are filled.
Bake: bake for 13-15 minutes, just until the bottoms are golden brown and the tops feel completely dry and set on the edge. There shouldn’t be any dough that still looks raw near the streusel in the center either, but the tops won’t have much color on them which is normal.
Cool fully: allow cookies to cool completely while you prepare the icing.
TO MAKE ICING:
Combine icing ingredients: stir together the powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla extract*1 until smooth and fully combined. The glaze should be thick, but still drizzle smoothly off the end of the fork. Feel free to carefully thin with milk, a teaspoon at a time, or thicken with powdered sugar, a tablespoon at a time, if desired.
Tray up cookies: place fully cooled cookies on a wire rack or baking sheet, close together.
Drizzle, share, and enjoy: use a fork, pastry bag with small round tip, or zip-top bag with a small corner cut off to drizzle the glaze back and forth over the cookies to you preferred amount of coverage. Allow glaze to set for 15-20 minutes, then share this delicious cinnamony mash-up with family and friends for an extra-special coffee break treat!
Notes
*1Glaze flavoring: while a traditional coffee cake would usually have a vanilla glaze, feel free to play around with the flavor here. I like using ⅛ teaspoon vanilla extract, or just a few drops of almond extract, or adding the fresh zest of half an orange for a citrusy twist that pairs really nicely with the cinnamon. Feel free to use whichever option sounds tastiest to you, or even skip the glaze altogether!
*2Roll in cinnamon sugar immediately! Because the dough balls will dry out as they sit, I highly recommend coating your dough balls immediately after you scoop one or two. If you scoop all the dough, then go back to coat it, you may have a harder time getting the sugar to stick due to the dried-out surfaces.
*3Streusel Tips: depending on how much your streusel butter has cooled after mixing, it may be easier or harder to keep it in clumps instead of dust.To make the clumps if needed, squeeze a big chunk of streusel together in your hand, then gently break up that chunk over top of the thumbprint to pile smaller and larger clumps up in the hole and on top of the cookie (check out this Instagram reel to see this in action!)
Storage: store these cookies at room temperature in an air-tight container for up to 5 days.
Fridge or freezer bake? because of the assembly of these cookies, I don’t recommend preparing them ahead of time at all.For best results, mix, assemble and bake the cookies al
It’d mean so much to me if you could please give the recipe card a ⭐ rating on the site and leave a comment to help others find this sweet recipe! Xo, Jocelyn @ Mint+Mallow