Impress your friends and family this holiday season with these delicious cinnamon cream cheese snowball cookies. With a soft and buttery texture and a hint of cream cheese and cinnamon, these treats are sure to be a hit at any gathering and the holidays.

Why You’ll Love These

Easy: These cream cheese snowball cookies are so easy and the only thing you need to do is mix the dough, scoop and roll the cookies and bake. At the very end you add the cookies to a large bag with powdered sugar and give it a good shake to coat them and make them look like snowballs.
Perfect For Holiday Gift Giving: These are a great cookies for gift giving and the holidays because they have those classic flavors of cinnamon and sugar (if you have tried my brown butter snickerdoodle cookies, you know I love this combo) and they are nut-free in case you have to worry about nut allergies!
Moist And Delicious: Since these are made with cream cheese, the cookies stay super moist with a melt in your mouth texture and the cream cheese paired with the cinnamon is a classic and delicious flavor combo.

Ingredients And Substitutions

Ingredients for cream cheese snowball cookies.

Philadelphia cream cheese: If you do not have this brand, any brand will do. If you have made my mini cheesecake bites, you know this brand is my preference for baking.
Unsalted butter: If you decide to use salted butter, just omit the salt from the recipe.
All purpose flour
Vanilla extract: You can also use vanilla bean paste at a 1:1 ratio.
Baking powder
Large Egg
Kosher salt: If you do not have kosher salt, you can use table salt but reduce the amount by half.
Ground cinnamon

How to Make Cinnamon Cream Cheese Snowball Cookies

Preparing the cream cheese snowball cookies steps from making the dough to rolling them.

Steps 1-2: In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients. In a separate bowl, cream the cream cheese and butter then add the sugar, egg and vanilla and mix until combined. You can use a hand mixer or stand mixer to do this step.
Steps 3-4: Combine the wet and dry ingredients until a dough forms then take a heaping tablespoon of the dough and drop into a bowl of powdered sugar. Roll the dough ball around to coat the cookie dough then roll it in the palm of your hands to form a ball.

Preparing the cream cheese snowball cookies from rolling them, baking to cooling on a cooling rack.

Steps 5-6: Roll out all of the cookie dough and place it on to a cookie sheet (no need to butter the cookie sheet or add parchment paper) and bake for 11-12 minutes or until the bottom starts to get browned. The cookies will have crinkles in them after baking which is normal.
Steps 7-8: Dump the powdered sugar from making the cookies into a large plastic bag. Add the cooled baked cookies to the bag about 4 at a time and gently mix them around in the sugar. Keep doing this until all the cookies are coated.

Tips

Rolling the snowball cookies: If you prefer to not have a crinkled appearnace on the cookies (even though it is covered by the powdered sugar later) skip rolling them in the powdered sugar before baking and instead dip your fingers in a little water before rolling.
Don't have a bag? If you do not have a bag to roll the cookies in powdered sugar, you can just roll the cookies around in a bowl of powdered sugar one at a time.

Cinnamon cream cheese snowball cookies on a small plate.

Storing

These cookies freeze really well. To do this I like to freeze them without rolling them in powdered sugar. Just add them to a freezer safe bag or container and freeze them for up to 2 months.

Although these cookies do have cream cheese in them, they are fine to store on the counter for a few days. After that (if there are any left) they can be refrigerated.

Print Recipe

5 from 1 vote

Cinnamon Cream Cheese Snowball Cookies

Prep Time15

Cook Time11

Total Time26

Servings: snowball cookies

US Customary - Metric

Author: Melissa Oleary

Ingredients

cookie dough

2 cups Unbleached all purpose flour sifted
1 ¼ cups Powdered sugar sifted
½ cup Unsalted butter at room temperature
4 ounces Cream cheese at room temperature
1 Large egg
2 teaspoon Vanilla extract
1 teaspoon Kosher salt or ¼ teaspoon regular salt
1 teaspoon Ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon Baking powder

Sugar to roll cookies in before and after baking

1 cup powdered sugar sifted

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

Making the Dough

In a large bowl with a hand mixer or stand mixer, cream the butter and cream cheese until fluffy (about 2 minutes).
½ cup Unsalted butter, 4 ounces Cream cheese
Now add in the sugar and mix well until incorporated.
1 ¼ cups Powdered sugar
Add the egg and vanilla and mix until combined.
1 Large egg, 2 teaspoon Vanilla extract
In a separate large bowl add all of the dry ingredients and whisk together to combine.
2 cups Unbleached all purpose flour, 1 teaspoon Kosher salt, 1 teaspoon Ground cinnamon, ½ teaspoon Baking powder
Combine the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients and mix until combined. Make sure to scrape down the bowl on the sides and bottom.

Making the Snowball Cookies

Add the powdered sugar to a small bowl.
1 cup powdered sugar
Take a heaping tablespoon of the dough and drop into the bowl of powdered sugar. Roll the dough ball around to coat the sticky dough then roll it in the palm of your hands to form a ball.
Roll out all of the cookie dough this way and place it on to a cookie sheet about 1 inch apart (no need to butter the cookie sheet or add parchment paper).
Bake for 11-12 minutes or until the bottom starts to get browned. The cookies will have crinkles in them after baking which is normal.
Remove from the oven and let cool completely on a wire rack.

Rolling in powdered sugar

Add the powdered sugar from your bowl into a large plastic bag.
Add the cooled baked cookies to the bag about 4 at a time and gently mix them around in the sugar. Keep doing this until all the cookies are coated.
Enjoy!

Notes

Cookies can be stored up to 3 days in an air tight container.

You can refrigerate the cookie dough up to 1 week

You can freeze the dough up to 1 month. To thaw, remove from the freezer and thaw overnight in the refrigerator.

Nutrition

Nutrition Values are estimates only.

See full nutrition disclaimer here

Tried the Recipe? We Would Love To Hear From You In The Comments Below!

Course :Dessert, entertaining, holidays