Friends I’ve landed most certainly on my favorite snickerdoodle recipe! These are fancy pants doods! We’re stuffing them with cheesecake and not making a single apology about it. Essentially the very best sugar cookie is made even better with a surprise filling.
There are few things I love more than the thick cream cheese portion of store-bought coffee cake (or store-bought King Cakes during Mardi Gras!). Where the dough meets the cream cheese – everything is soft, cheesy, and right with the world. IYKYK. Cream cheese and pastry might actually be one of the reasons I became a baker in the first place. These cookies embody that gooey spirit, with a crisp, cinnamon spiced exterior.
Here’s how!
Here are the ingredients you’ll need to make this snickerdoodle recipe:
• unsalted butter, softened to room temperature. If you’re curious, here’s why we use unsalted butter.
• brown sugar and granulated sugar – 1 cup sugar total.
• baking soda, cream of tartar, cinnamon, and kosher salt. Cream of tartar is an important ingredient in snickerdoodles. Cream of tartar is a dry acid and when combined with baking soda, we essentially have baking powder which works to keep these cookies soft and chewy.
• vanilla or butterscotch instant pudding (!!) A bit of an odd ingredient for cookies but the pudding keeps the cookies soft, tender, and chewy- intensifying the taste and improving the texture of these cookies!
• 1 large egg for the cookie dough and 1 large egg yolk for the cheesecake filling. Here’s why we use large eggs in baking.
• powdered sugar
• vanilla extract
• all-purpose flour (whisk together all of the dry ingredients in a medium bowl first!)
• cinnamon-sugar mixture in a small bowl for coating the cookie dough.
Let’s start by making the cheesecake filling for the center of our cookies:
Whisk together softened cream cheese, powdered sugar, an egg yolk, a pinch of salt and a splash of vanilla. The mixture will be soft and stretchy.
The cream cheese filling needs to chill before it goes into the center of the cookies. There are a few ways to do this. You can scoop teaspoon sized potions onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet and refrigerate them. (That’s what’s pictured above.) OR you can just refrigerate the entire bowl of filling and scoop it into the cookies after the entire mixture has chilled through. We just don’t want any of the cheesecake filling to ooze out while we’re shaping the dough balls.
While the cheesecake filling chills, make the cookie dough for this snickerdoodle recipe.
In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, whip together softened butter, granulated, and brown sugar. Cream until well combined and fluffy. Beat in an egg and vanilla extract until thick and glossy.
Whisk together the dry ingredients (including that pudding!) and add all at once to the butter and sugar mixture.
Use a hand mixer to incorporate the wet and dry ingredients though I usually just reach for a rubber spatula to fold everything together.
The dough of this snickerdoodle recipe is a caramel colors, firm but soft. Let’s shape dough!
We’ll assemble the dough balls before we chill them. Use a cookie scoop to spoon a tablespoon of dough into the palm of your hand and spread it into 1/4-inch thick dough disk. Add a teaspoon of chilled cheesecake filling. Portion another tablespoon of dough into a similar disk and place over the cheesecake filling, pinching the edges to seal.
Roll each filled cookie between your palms into a ball and place on a small parchment lined baking sheet to chill.
Can this snickerdoodle recipe be made ahead and refrigerated or frozen?
YES ABSOLUTELY!
- Snickerdoodle cookie dough can be refrigerated for 2 days or frozen for up to a month. Thaw the dough before creating disks and filling the cookies.
- Cheesecake filling will last up to 3 days in the refrigerator though I don’t recommend freezing it.
- Chill the assembled cookie dough balls for at least an hour in the refrigerator, or overnight, before baking. I don’t recommend freezing the assembled cookie dough balls.
Place the wire rack in the upper third of the oven. Preheat the oven and roll dough balls in cinnamon sugar just before baking.
Just out of the oven, allow the cookies to rest on the baking pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack to come to room temperature. Store these cookies in an airtight container (or freezer bag) and keep them chilled in the fridge if you have leftovers.
These thick and tender cookies are also equally delicious without the cheesecake center but… well, I think we should have cheesecake at every opportunity.
You might also like Cranberry Cream Cheese Danish Cookies. Add any jam you’d like if you’re outside of cranberry season!
These cookies are always in season. They’re classic – but I especially love to share them at Christmas.
Print
Cheesecake-Stuffed Snickerdoodles
- Prep Time: 1 hour 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 12 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 42 minutes
- Yield: 12 to 18 cookies 1x
- Category: cookies
Description
A classic chewy snickerdoodle cookie with a cheesecake center!
Ingredients
For the Cheesecake Filling:
- 4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1 large egg yolk
- Splash of vanilla extract
- 1 cup (130 grams) powdered sugar, sifted if clumpy
For the Cookie Dough:
- 1/2 cup (1 stick, 113 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) lightly packed light brown sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups (250 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
- 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 (3.5 ounce) box instant butterscotch or vanilla pudding
For the Topping:
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment or in a medium bowl with electric hand beaters, cream together the cheesecake filling ingredients until smooth and thick. Spoon into teaspoon size balls onto a parchment lined baking sheet and refrigerate while you make the cookie dough. OR refrigerate the entire bowl of filling until chilled through, about 30 minutes.
- To make the cookie dough, use the same stand mixer and paddle attachment or a large bowl with electric hand beaters. Cream together butter and sugars until pale and fluffy, 3 to 5 minutes. Add the egg and beat for an additional minute. Beat in the vanilla extract.
- In a small bow whisk together all of the dry ingredients: flour, cream of tarter, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and pudding.
- Add the dry ingredients all at once to the butter and sugar mixture. Beat on low to combine. Use a rubber spatula to finish incorporating the ingredients.
- To assemble the cookies, scoop a heaping tablespoon of cookie dough into your palm. Flatten into a 1/4-inch thick, about 2-inch disk. Add a teaspoon portion of chilled cream cheese mixture. Add another disk of cookie dough and press around the edges to seal. Roll into a ball between your palms.
- Place on a small rimmed baking sheet (you can place them right next to one another just to chill). Once all of the dough balls are formed, refrigerate for at least an hour before baking. Cookies can also be refrigerated overnight.
- When ready to bake, in a small bowl combine the sugar and cinnamon. Place a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Place cookies 2 inches apart on a parchment lined baking sheet. Bake for 12-14 minutes until just golden around the edges. Cool cookies on the baking sheet for 10 minutes before placing on a wire rack to cool further.
- Enjoy cookies warm and store the rest in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. Bring cookies to room temperature or toast in a warm oven before enjoying.
Photos of this snickerdoodle recipe with my friend Jon Melendez.
28 Responses
This recipe is bad. The ratios are way off for the cookie dough. I had to add a significant amount of butter and egg to get the dough to come together. It was very dry and crumbly before. The addition of instant pudding (I used it dry) was odd and I didn’t much enjoy the flavor (used vanilla). With alterations the recipe is salvageable but there are better ones out there.
Joy, I have been reading and loving your blog for years — and supporting you along the way! I have made so many of your recipes, but never commented until now. When you double this cookie recipe, the proportions are off. I have been baking for years, with many fun and complex baking projects I have loved (including cheesecake stuffed cookies!). This recipe is as dry and incorrect as the other commenters say. You really need to make the recipe doubled to see how dry and crumbly the dough is.
Thanks for the feedback, Ariel. I’m going to go back and review / retest this recipe before the holidays. Nobody wants a dry cookie! I’ll make it right. So glad to hear you’ve made so many other recipes with success. It means a lot to me when folks come back to report their successes as well. xo
Hi, I am needing to make 6 dozen cookies for a swap, and so would love to know if you have reviewed the recipe after doubling, as a few other folks indicated it needs to be adusted. Will be doubling or tripling the recipe. Thanks
As someone else mentioned early this year, I also doubled the recipe and the dough is not binding. It’s a wet sand consistency. Something must need to be altered in order for the batter to be wetter. :(
Cookie recipe was perfect. I had too much filling so I ended up doubling the main cookie recipe. Then I had had a really hard time stuffing the cookies with the cheesecake mixture so I made the second batch as thumbprints and spooned the mixture in. It worked perfectly. I didn’t have quite enough for all of them, but I think for my skill level they look far more uniform.
I consider myself an accomplished baker, but I could not figure out this recipe. My first try was far too dry to the point I considered that maybe they meant pudding, not just the pudding powder. Redid it with that and the batter was too wet. Very unclear, never came together, and wasted ingredients. Run away from this recipe and listen to anyone else.
Hm… sounds like you had some real inconsistencies Regen. I’m sorry to hear that. I know how frustrating it can be wasting ingredients. I’ve tested this recipe several times and the only real tricky part is getting the cheesecake filling into the center of the cookie. I’ll test the recipe again in the next few weeks just to be extra sure.
I made these for my annual Christmas party on Saturday and they were a big hit. The only issue I ran into is that I doubled the recipe and I wasn’t able to work quickly enough to form the balls of dough before it got harder to work with. It was also 72 in Charlotte so maybe the heat/humidity hurt me there too. Otherwise, everyone loved them!
When do you put the cinnamon/sugar on?
I make these every year varying recipes. They are always so difficult to get the filling to not ooze out. This year I rolled into balls, took a small wooden spoon end to make an indent then piped in mixture, topped with a lid and rolled again. Got to skip a lot of steps and turned out so much easier.
That’s fantastic!
Why is my cookie batter so dry? It’s not even rollable, I did the exact recipe to the tee
I also had this problem. And the filling was gloopy even after refrigerating for 3 hours.
Darn it. Was going to give as Christmas gifts.
The cookie dough is so ridiculously dry…there has to be something missing. It is almost impossible to work with. I even added about 3 Tbsp of melted butter in the hopes it would come together better. Also, you left out the part about rolling them in the sugar and cinnamon, but I’ve made Snicker Doodles before, so already knew.
PLEASE HELP!
You had me interested until I read adding a box of pudding. Can I make these without the box of pudding? Can I add cornstarch or something??
You can certainly try it any way you’d like but this is the recipe I used and enjoyed.
I got your sure suggested by my browser. I found the dough difficult to work with. It would not seal but was cracking while I tried to pinch and then roll it. I added a few drops of water to the recipe which did help. My cookies are much larger than yours appear. They do taste delicious, but I felt they were rather labor intensive. I am holding on to the recipe and I will see they are received at our Christmas open house.
Wow!!! I can already imagine me biting them!!
Made these last night, baked them this morning, tasted one just now and it is DIVINE. Maybe best cookie I’ve ever made. Made them exactly as written except I thought I just had 1 egg, so I used a little less than a whole yolk in the cheesecake filling. And the rest of the egg (I guess about 2/3 in the cookie). Maybe as a result, the dough was a tiny bit hard to work with (not bad, it just cracked a little bit and I found it difficult to get perfect balls), but ultimately the cookies turned out BEAUTIFULLY so no complaints in the long run. They will go in our holiday cookie boxes for neighbors!
I tried making these and the taste was good but the process was not. The Doug was extremely hard and dry I couldn’t even rolling it out without crumbling and the filling was runny even after cooling. The cookie after baking was chewie but the stuff in the middle was still runny. Did I do something wrong ???
I am making cookies tins for family and am trying to do as much ahead of time as possible. If I baked and then froze these cookies, do you think they would thaw okay?
Yes I think they would!
Wow okay yeah. Scrapping all previous Christmas cookie plans and making these ASAP! These look like heaven.
Amazing recipe of CHEESECAKE-STUFFED SNICKERDOODLES. Thank you for sharing such a lovely recipe. Looking forward to more.
wow,, these are what snickerdoodles should have always been! To me they’re ok on their own, definitely one note, but when filled with cheesecake, then over the top in the best way, thank you!
Cream cheese filled Snickerdoodles! You have created a thing of beauty. I will definitely be giving these a try. I have one question, if I refrigerate the bowl of cookie dough, how long do I need to let it thaw to room temperature? Is it easier to simply form the balls/disks before refrigerating ? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.
Wow, Joy, you’ve really out done yourself. These look and sound amazing!