I have a cookie recipe for you that’s truly something special. If you’ve been following AK for any amount of time there’s a good chance you’ve tried my famous cinnamon roll recipe (it’s the best on the internet!)
YES, I made a cookie version of best ever cinnamon rolls! These gorgeous grain free cinnamon roll cookies are made with almond and coconut flour to keep them grain and gluten free, and they’re rolled up with the most perfect cinnamon sugar filling. They seriously taste just like a warm cinnamon roll and even have a light vanilla glaze for the total package!
The best part about these cinnamon roll cookies is how fun they are to make. You’ll actually mix, roll up, and slice the dough just like you would with regular cinnamon rolls, so it’s the perfect holiday baking activity. Plus, they get even softer and more delicious as the days go by. Bake a batch and enjoy!
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What you’ll need to make grain free cinnamon roll cookies
Get ready for a delicious cookie recipe that’s SO fun and satisfying to make. We’re keeping these cinnamon roll cookies gluten free and grain free with a couple of my fav GF flours, and we’re not skimping on the wonderful cinnamon sugar swirl. Here’s what you’ll need:
- Flours: these grain free cinnamon roll cookies are made with a mix of almond flour and coconut flour, which provide a dose of healthy fats and keep the cookies deliciously soft.
- Coconut oil: add the perfect amount of moisture to the dough with some melted coconut oil.
- Sugar: you’ll need organic cane sugar for the dough and light brown sugar for the cinnamon sugar filling.
- Egg: this recipe uses just one egg.
- For the filling: the dough is rolled up with a mix of brown sugar, butter and cinnamon!
- Baking staples: gotta have vanilla extract, baking soda & salt.
- For the glaze: we’re drizzling on a light vanilla glaze made from butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, a little milk of choice and an optional tablespoon of cream cheese for extra creaminess.
Optional ingredient swaps
I always recommend sticking to the recipe as best as you can for perfect results, but here are some swaps that will likely work well:
- For the coconut oil: feel free to use more melted butter or vegan butter.
- For the sugar: you can use coconut sugar in place of the cane sugar in the dough, but please note that the cookies will turn out darker and won’t have that cinnamon roll “look” to them. Coconut sugar should also work in the filling in place of the brown sugar. Using coconut sugar will make the cookies paleo-friendly, and you can use my paleo powdered sugar in the glaze if you’d like!
- For the egg: I think that a flax egg might work in these grain free cinnamon roll cookies, but please note that I have not tested this option. Let me know in the comments if you do! Feel free to then use vegan butter and coconut oil if you’d like to keep the cookies vegan.
Can I use a different flour?
Unfortunately, no. I cannot recommend a flour substitute in these gluten free cinnamon roll cookies. If you’re looking to make a similar cookie with “regular,” non-gluten free flour I suggest combining my molasses cookie dough and my brown butter snickerdoodle dough. You should get delicious results!
How to make grain free cinnamon roll cookies
These wonderful gluten free cinnamon roll cookies are a bit more time-intensive because of the chill times, but they’re truly easy to make and always worth it!
- Make & chill the dough. Start by whisking together the wet ingredients, then mixing in the dry ingredients until your dough forms. Shape it into a disc and wrap it in plastic wrap to chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour.
- Mix the filling. Right before you’re ready to roll out the dough, mix the brown sugar, butter & cinnamon until it’s well combined.
- Roll out the dough. Next, roll out your chilled cinnamon roll cookie dough and spread the cinnamon filling over the top. Be sure to leave about 1/4 inch on each side so that the filling doesn’t spill out while the cookies bake.
- Roll the dough up. Just like with regular cinnamon rolls, you’ll then carefully roll the dough up started on the longest end. Roll it nice and tight and seal any cracks by wrapping your dough “log” in parchment paper and rolling it back and forth on the counter. Chill the log for 30 minutes.
- Slice & bake. Once the dough has chilled, cut off about 1/2 inch of cookie dough at the ends of your log and discard (as these parts won’t have much filling). Then slice cookie dough into 1/4 inch thick rounds, place them on your prepared baking sheet and bake.
- Drizzle & enjoy. While the cookies are baking you can mix together the vanilla glaze. Drizzle a couple of teaspoons over each cooled cinnamon roll cookie and enjoy!
Make these cookies ahead of time
A great way to save time this holiday season is to make these yummy grain free cinnamon roll cookies ahead of time! To do so you can:
- Chill the dough: once you’ve mixed the dough together you can wrap it in plastic wrap and chill it in the refrigerator overnight. Simple roll out, roll up, slice and bake the cookies the next day!
- Chill the log: after you’ve rolled the dough up with the cinnamon filling you can wrap the whole “log” and place it in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. That way you can slice and bake right away.
Tips for perfect cinnamon roll cookies
Remember to get all of my best tips & tricks for baking cookies in our downloadable cookie e-book here! Use these as a general guide for these grain free cinnamon roll cookies:
- Do not use substitutes. Please be sure to follow the recipe as written unless substitutes are noted in the notes section of the recipe or within the blog post. As I mentioned above, changing the flour will greatly affect the taste and texture of these cookies.
- Make sure your ingredients are room temp. You’ll want to be sure that your coconut and egg are both at room temp when you mix the wet ingredients, otherwise, they will coagulate and create a much different texture. Be sure to use room temp butter in the filling, too, and not melted butter!
- Use fresh baking soda. Make sure your baking soda is fresh to ensure that these cookies bake up properly.
- Pack your almond flour. You’ll want to pack the almond flour just like you would with brown sugar.
Freeze them for later
You can either freeze the gluten free cinnamon roll cookie dough or the baked cookies for later! Check out our full post here to learn exactly how to prep, freeze and thaw both ways. If you’re freezing the dough, I’d recommend doing so before you roll it up with the cinnamon sugar filling.
More holiday cookies to try
- Peanut Butter Cup S’mores Chocolate Cookies
- Soft Cut Out Sugar Cookies (gluten free, grain free, paleo friendly)
- Grain Free Snickerdoodles
- Grain Free Chocolate Orange Pinwheels
- Healthy Homemade Fudge Striped Shortbread Cookies
Get all of our amazing cookie recipes here!
I hope you love these grain free cinnamon roll cookies! If you make them be sure to leave a comment and a rating so I know how you liked them. Enjoy, xo!
Ambitious Kitchen
Cookbook
125 Ridiculously Good For You, Sometimes Indulgent, and Absolutely Never Boring Recipes for Every Meal of the Day
Grain Free Cinnamon Roll Cookies
Ingredients
- For the wet ingredients:
- 1/3 cup melted and cooled coconut oil (or sub melted butter)
- 1/3 cup organic cane sugar*
- 1 egg, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- For the dry ingredients:
- 1 1/2 cups packed fine blanched almond flour (do not use almond meal)
- 3 tablespoons coconut flour
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- For the cinnamon filling:
- 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
- ¼ cup butter, at room temperature (NOT MELTED)
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- For the vanilla glaze:
- 1 tablespoon butter, melted
- 1 tablespoon softened cream cheese (optional)
- 1/4 cup powdered sugar
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1-2 teaspoons milk of choice, to thin glaze to your liking
Instructions
- In a large bowl, add the melted coconut oil, sugar, egg and vanilla extract; whisk until well combined and smooth.
- Next, add dry ingredients to wet ingredients: almond flour, coconut flour, baking soda and salt. Mix with a wooden spoon (not a whisk) until dough comes together.
- Shape dough into a disc and wrap tightly with plastic wrap. Chill dough in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour. Also optional to chill overnight if you want to save time.
- After an hour (or right before you’re ready to roll out your cookie dough), mix together the cinnamon sugar filling: in a medium bowl, mix together brown sugar, butter and cinnamon. I like to mix this together with a fork so I can really work the butter into the brown sugar.
- Roll out the cold cookie dough into an approximate 10×10-inch square that’s 1/4th inch thick between two sheets of wax or parchment paper. Spread the brown sugar cinnamon filling over the top of the dough leaving about ¼ inch on each side.
- Starting with the edge of the dough closest to you (or the longest end), carefully curl the edge of the dough up and roll with your fingertips, just like you would with a cinnamon roll. If it starts to break the dough may be too cold, or you’ll just need to mend it back together again a bit with your fingers. Don’t worry too much! You’ll want to roll these pretty tightly. After a log is formed, wrap it in parchment paper and roll it back and forth on the counter to compact the dough and seal any cracks. The log should be approximately 9-10 inches long, and about 2 inches thick, give or take. Place back in the fridge for 30 minutes or up to 2 days.
- Once ready to bake: preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.
- Slice ½ inch of cookie dough off of the ends of the log and discard; this dough likely won’t have a good amount of cinnamon sugar. Next slice cookie dough into about ¼ inch thick rounds. Set rounds 1-2 inches apart and bake for 10-13 minutes until they are just slightly golden brown on the edges.
- Once cookies are done baking, allow them to cool on the baking sheet for 5-10 before transferring them to a wire rack to finish cooling. Repeat with remaining dough.
- To make the glaze: In a medium bowl: add in melted butter, optional cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla extract and 1 teaspoon of milk. Mix until smooth, adding more milk to thin the glaze if necessary. Drizzle a teaspoon or two over each cookie. Makes approximately 22 cookies, depending on how thick they are.
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Recipe by: Monique Volz // Ambitious Kitchen | Photography by: Eat Love Eats
A little confused by the direction “Divide dough into a disc and wrap tightly with plastic wrap.” I’m not sure how that looks? I would’ve thought you’d knead it into a ball (or divide it into 2 balls) and then wrap in plastic.
Oops, sorry about that! Meant to say form the dough into a disc (a flattened ball) and then wrap in plastic. We’ll update that!
I love all your recipes. Thank you!
Aw thank you so much, I’m glad to hear that ❤️
These are so DELISH. Highly recommend using the cream cheese in the frosting. It makes it so tasty. My new fave cookie.
Woohooo! Happy you loved these, Becca! Thanks for the review 🙂
These were absolutely amazing!! My boyfriend was in love with them and we fought over the last one. I let him win. 😉 thanks so much!!
Hahaha love that. So happy you guys enjoyed them!!
Made these last weekend for no other reason than absolutely loving cinnamon rolls and being curious how these would turn out. I did have to go buy coconut and almond flour bc I never keep in the house… but I’m going to have to keep my pantry stocked now bc these cookies are SO GOOD. My dad and I ate the entire batch ourselves and were sad when they were gone! My only hang up was with the glaze… I tried 3 times and it never came out right for some reason. I tried with and without cream cheese and made sure butter was cooled but it just didn’t combine correctly. The 3rd time the consistency was ok but then it was sickeningly sweet having to add more powdered sugar to thicken. The cookies are so good on their own that no glaze is even necessary in my opinion! Will definitely be keeping these in my rotation!
SO happy you loved these, Nikki, and glad you have the almond & coconut flour to make them again! Hmmm not sure what could have happened, was the glaze too thick or too thin or lumpy?
Amazing!
Yay!! Thanks for leaving a review 🙂
I loved these! They turned out chewy and and the cinnamon flavor works so well with the almond flour. I’m not gluten free, but wanted to try these for fun. Will be making more for sure!
I love your recipes and I’ve recreated many of them, but this one was a huge fail. My dough would not roll whatsoever. It just continued to break apart and refused to roll. Not sure what I did wrong and the dough wasn’t cold when I tried. Very disappointed because I was so excited to try these.
Hi, Noelle. So sorry to hear that. So you chilled the dough before rolling it? And did you roll it between two sheets of wax/parchment paper? That’s essential so that it doesn’t stick to the rolling pin/counter or fall apart.
Hi, can you suggest an alternate for coconut flour?
I haven’t tested these without it and think it’s essential to the texture, sorry!
I made these last night. I followed the directions exactly except I did spread the butter/cinnamon mixture to the edges because I didn’t want to loose any dough. They came out perfectly! I pinned them and will definitely be making these again!!
Ohh I love this! I always bake this in batch!
This is my favorite cookie recipe! My friends love these and request them all of the time. They are absolutely to die for and are so cute!
Glad they’re a hit! I need to make these again soon!
These are my husband’s absolutely favourite cookie, and he requests them every year around Christmas time. My only modification to the recipe is regular granulated sugar in the batter. These are a must add to your Christmas baking list!
Love that!!
Honestly, these were one of the best cookies I’ve ever eaten. I struggled rolling up the dough and I kept having to “fix” it. I think mine was too cold. But it worked out and they were delicious. I can’t put my finger on it, but the flavor and texture were next level. I appreciate that they are gluten and dairy free. My roommate said they were “cinnamon rolls perfected.” Thanks for an amazing recipe.
Amazing! Glad they were a hit!