Thanks for the responses. The dough cracks randomly in different areas, not the length of the rolls. My recipe is similar to yours Betteirene, uses the same ingred. but in slightly diff. quantities (except mine doesn't use milk). My dough is very easy to work with after chilled for 2 hrs. so I was surprised at the cracks. Will maybe experience with quantities. Thanks for both the responses...will check the baking powder qty.

Do you get a deep fissure down the middle of the roll, like the characteristic center crack down the length of a poundcake? Try making shorter rolls and/or placing the baking sheets in the top third of the oven. Do you get a few shorter cracks (1/2"-1" long) in different spots? Try baking the filled roll of dough in a tube of parchment paper, seam-side down (I've never tried this but I have a friend who does this with biscotti). Or, instead of baking the filled rolls of dough and then slicing them after baking, you could cut the dough into circles or squares, put a blob of fig filling in the middle, then fold the dough over and crimp the edges, as for cucidata.

The dough in the recipe I have is very soft and hard to work with unless it's chilled. I roll it between sheets of plastic wrap so that I don't have to add flour to keep it from sticking. Here's the recipe: 3/4 cup softened butter, 3/4 cup sugar, 2 eggs, 3 cups flour, 1-1/2 tsp. baking powder, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/4 cup milk, 1 tsp. vanilla. Is it different from yours? I dump everything into a bowl, mix it with a wooden spoon, pat it into two discs, wrap in plastic and chill for an hour, and then I roll each disc into long rectangles a little less than 1/4" thick and about 4" wide.

what's the leavener in the recipe? Maybe too much?