Flaky Cinnamon Pinwheels
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Flaky pie crust is rolled with a generous dose of butter and cinnamon sugar to make the best cinnamon pinwheels! These little pie crust cinnamon rolls are the perfect cookies to serve with coffee and a great way to use up leftover pie dough!
This post may contain affiliate links. See my disclosure policy for details.
Hi friends, I’m so excited to bring you my favorite Cinnamon Pinwheels recipe today!
These are my mom’s signature cookies, which she would always make us from the leftover pie crust scraps at Thanksgiving. But since acquiring a couple of son in laws and grandchildren, she’s had to exponentially up the quantity, and now makes pie crust solely for these cookies. Yea, they’re that amazing.
If you want a puff pastry version of these flaky cinnamon swirls, try my easy Puff Pastry Cinnamon Rolls or my Puff Pastry Cinnamon Twists. Perfect for the holidays!
What are Cinnamon Pinwheels?
They’re basically little pie crust cinnamon rolls! Typically, these guys are made from the scraps trimmed off of pies during the sealing and crimping process.
To make these, you’ll roll out your pie crust–either freshly made or from leftover pie scraps– into a rectangle.
You slather the surface of the rectangle with melted butter and then drench said butter with a blend of cinnamon and sugar.
Roll up the dough, slice and bake!
The crust bakes up super flaky and buttery and the center glistens with gooey cinnamon. Sheer perfection.
How to make Cinnamon Pinwheels (Pie Crust Cinnamon Rolls)
Makes 22 Cinnamon Pinwheels
Ingredients You’ll Need:
- 1/4 cup of granulated sugar
- 1 heaping tablespoon of ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) of unsalted butter, very cold and cut into cubes
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 5 tablespoons of ice water
- 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter, melted
Instructions:
Combine the granulated sugar and the cinnamon in a small dish and set aside.
To Make The Pie Crust:
In the bowl of a food processor, add the flour and salt. Pulse a few times to combine.
Add in cold, cubed butter and pulse until the mixture looks like coarse sand.
Alternatively, you can cut the butter into the flour with your fingertips or a pastry cutter if you don’t have a food processor. You’ll need to work quickly so the butter doesn’t melt.
Drizzle in the water and pulse until the mixture starts to form clumps.
Add more water a tablespoon at a time if the mixture looks too dry and won’t clump together when squeezed in your hand.
Once mixed, pour the pie dough onto a piece of plastic wrap.
Quickly and gently press the dough together into a rectangle. Do not work the dough too much, or the crust will be tough.
Wrap in the plastic and chill in the fridge for one hour.
Preheat the oven to 375° and adjust your oven rack to the middle height position in your oven (I have 8 shelves, so I put my rack on the 4th shelf up from the bottom).
Rolling Out The Cinnamon Pinwheels Dough
Once the dough has chilled, cut the dough in half and roll out to about 1/4″ thick. Make the rectangle about two times wider than it is tall.
Feel free to trim the edges of your rectangle to make them all neater if you desire.
Pour 1 tablespoon of melted butter onto your rolled out dough.
Using a pastry brush, spread the melted butter over the dough until it’s evenly coated.
Sprinkle on a generous 2 tablespoons of the cinnamon sugar mixture.
Starting from the bottom edge of the rectangle, roll up the pinwheels tightly until you have a nice even log.
Trim off the ends and cut into 1″ slices.
Place the slices onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet, cinnamon swirl side facing up.
Repeat the rolling, filling, and slicing process with your second half of dough.
You’ll probably have extra cinnamon sugar left over–that’s ok! You can use it to sprinkle over the tops of the cookies before baking!
If the dough is really soft, pop it in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up.
Bake in a 375° oven for 15-18 minutes, until the sides are puffed, and the bottom edge is lightly golden brown.
How do you get sugar to stick to pie crust?
BUTTER! A generous drizzle of melted butter is the key to getting a good deal of cinnamon sugar into the center of these pie crust cinnamon rolls.
And because there is no sugar in the pie crust itself, we need to make sure there is enough cinnamon sugar filling to give the cookies ample sweetness and spice.
Can I make Cinnamon Pinwheels Ahead?
Yes!
You can make the pie crust up to two days ahead. Wrap tightly in plastic wrap and store in the fridge.
When you’re ready to use, remove from the fridge, and roll out as stated in the recipe. If the dough is too firm to roll, let it sit on the counter for a couple of minutes to soften. But don’t let it get too warm! The butter in the dough needs to stay nice and cold to make flaky cookies.
You can also freeze these cookies! See below.
How To Freeze Cinnamon Pinwheels:
If you need to store your cinnamon pinwheel dough long term, you can freeze it!
Prepare the dough, wrap it in plastic wrap, and store in an airtight container or freezer bag until ready to use.
When you’re ready to use the dough, let it thaw in the fridge overnight before rolling, filling, and forming cookies.
OR
You can make your pie crust, roll it out, fill it with butter and cinnamon sugar, and slice it as the recipe states. But instead of baking the cookies, pop them on a sheet pan and place them in the freezer until they’re frozen solid.
Once frozen, transfer to a freezer bag or freezer safe container.
When you’re ready to bake, place frozen pinwheels on a parchment (not wax!) paper lined cookie sheet and bake at 375° on the middle rack for 17-19 minutes.
No need to thaw first!
Tips for making the best Cinnamon Pinwheels:
- Make sure your oven rack is not too low. I suggest adjusting the oven rack to the middle height position. The cinnamon sugar goes from caramelized to burnt on the bottom of these cookies in an instant.
- Don’t overwork the dough. When making the pie crust for these cookies, make sure to be as gentle as possible. Don’t knead the dough too much or gluten will develop and you’ll lose the flakiness.
- Make sure the dough is cool and firm before baking, or else the cookies will just melt. If the dough feels super warm or soft, pop in the fridge for 30 minutes to let it firm back up again.
- Don’t skimp on the cinnamon sugar. There’s no sugar in the pie crust, so all the sweetness is coming from the filling, so make sure to be liberal with it.
Other cookies I know you’ll love:
Peanut Butter Reindeer Cookies
The Best Blueberry Pie Cookies
Simple and Easy Iced Oatmeal Cookies
Chocolate Covered Graham Crackers
More Favorites from Barefoot In The Pines
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Cinnamon Pinwheels
Flaky pie crust is rolled with a generous dose of butter and cinnamon sugar to make the best cinnamon pinwheel cookies!
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup of granulated sugar
- 1 heaping tablespoon of ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 3/4 cup 1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter, very cold and cut into cubes
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 5 tablespoons of ice water
- 2 tablespoons of unsalted butter melted
Instructions
- Combine the granulated sugar and the cinnamon in a small dish and set aside.
- To make the pie crust: In the bowl of a food processor, add the flour and salt. Pulse a few times to combine.
- Add in cold, cubed butter and pulse until the mixture looks like coarse sand.
- Alternatively, you can cut the butter into the flour with your fingertips or a pastry cutter if you don’t have a food processor. You’ll need to work quickly so the butter doesn’t melt.
- Drizzle in the water and pulse until the mixture starts to form clumps.
- Add more water a tablespoon at a time if the mixture looks too dry and won’t clump together when squeezed in your hand.
- Once mixed, pour the pie dough onto a piece of plastic wrap.
- Quickly and gently press the dough together into a rectangle. Do not work the dough too much, or the crust will be tough.
- Wrap in the plastic and chill in the fridge for one hour.
- Preheat the oven to 375° and adjust your oven rack to the middle height position in your oven (I have 8 shelves, so I put my rack on the 4th shelf up from the bottom).
- Rolling and Shaping the Cookies: once the dough has chilled, cut the dough in half and roll out to about 1/4″ thick.
- Make a rectangle about two times wider than it is tall.
- Feel free to trim the edges of your rectangle to make them all neater if you desire.
- Pour 1 tablespoon of melted butter onto your rolled out dough.
- Using a pastry brush, spread the melted butter over the dough until it’s evenly coated.
- Sprinkle on a generous 2 tablespoons of the cinnamon sugar mixture.
- Starting from the bottom edge of the rectangle, roll up the pinwheels tightly until you have a nice even log.
- Trim off the ends and cut into 1″ slices.
- Place the slices onto a parchment paper lined cookie sheet, cinnamon swirl side facing up.
- Repeat the rolling, filling, and slicing process with your second half of dough.
- If you have extra cinnamon sugar left over–that’s ok! You can use it to sprinkle over the tops of the cookies before baking!
- If the dough is really soft, pop it in the fridge for 30 minutes to firm up.
- Bake in a 375° oven for 15-18 minutes, until the sides are puffed, and the bottom edge is lightly golden brown.
Oh these looks so yummy! Beautiful photos too!
Thank you so much!!!
Yum I am trying these for Christmas Eve thanks for sharing
Michelle, yum! Simple but looks so good!!
These are so cute! We always do this with leftover pie dough and bake it in a log. Now I want to try these and bake them cut individually!
I am learning so much from following you on Instagram and reading all of your recipes. These look absolutely amazing, and I can’t wait to try them!
Thank you so much!! I hope you absolutely love them!
These look so yummy!
absolutely delicious! Thank you so much Megan! I‘ve tried several of your recipes and all of them were great!
I haven’t made these in 15+ years, so I was looking for a quick recipe and a refresher. They came out so good. I used to pour a few drops of melted butter onto each pinwheel once cut and on the baking sheet, but I like your way better of brushing it out across the dough prior to sugaring and rolling. Much more consistent, and less chance of over-buttering. I used pie dough from scratch from another recipe, that I had made for apple pies earlier in the week. Enough dough for 1 pie. I printed out the recipe, and it’s being saved. Everyone absolutely loved these. I made one batch with thicker swirls like you, then I tried making the dough thinner with extra swirls. Both equally enjoyable. Just down to preference at that point.