Homemade Cinnamon Rolls!
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Delicious and sweet homemade cinnamon rolls. Easy to bake, and even more delicious to eat.
Sweet bread
So I’ve tried my hand at several different breads over my time of baking more, but most of that was at cookery school. I don’t often post dough related recipes on here as I feel like there not going to have much of a reception, but I feel like I could be wrong there. Is it wrong? You tell me… but I bloody love bread.
This recipe is based quite a lot on my lemon & blueberry sweet rolls recipe, because I just love it so much. I’ve never had an issue when baking them, and I just adore the lemon and blueberry flavours.. but the classic is cinnamon really.
Cinnamon rolls
I often get a cinnamon roll when I go to my local starbucks or other coffee shop to work, and I do question why I haven’t posted a recipe for these sooner.Obviously, if you aren’t a fan of cinnamon, you’re not going to like these. However if you like cinnamon, you’re going to be a BIG fan. I am obsessed.
I adore my baked cinnamon doughnuts recipe, because its warm and cinnamon-y, and these are just as good. A bit heavier admittedly because they are an actual dough, but still so cosy and warm. I realise it is now coming into spring and then summer, but I love cinnamon year round.
Cinnamon goodness
A lot of people say cinnamon is a Christmas thing, and it is very good round that time of year, but my gosh I just adore it all the time. Cinnamon rolls are just the epitome of heaven in a bite. I make sure that my cinnamon rolls are quite thick with cinnamon goodness, but thats entirely your choice.
They are very adaptable, and can easily be made less or more cinnamon like, but that’s something you can work out easily if you make these a couple of times. You work out what is your favourite.
My trusty steed!
I will say I feel like I’m a bit of a cheat when it comes to baking anything like these, or my sticky chocolate sweet rolls, because I use my KitchenAid with a dough hook.
When I was in cookery school, I had to knead all my dough by hand, so I quickly learned the techniques because I simply had to, but now I don’t ~have~ to, I’ have become very lazy in that department. The dough hooks look a little weird when in use, but it works so well, and its so easy.
Literally bung the ingredients in, and let it do its thing. It will be a sticky mess at first, but it soon comes together. It’s sort of magical to watch all the ingredient come together to form the perfect dough.
Kneading by hand?
If you are kneading it by hand, you will probably want to try kneading it in a bowl for the first couple of minutes so that you don’t have to add in too much extra flour to stop it sticking to the work surface. However, you do you. I am lazy, we all know that, so I let my dough hook do its thing.
Topping
For the topping I just do an icing drizzle – but you can make it a cream cheese frosting by following my cream cheese frosting recipe – or even just beating in 50g or so of cream cheese to this one! I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I do! x
Homemade Cinnamon Rolls!
Ingredients
The Dough
- 600 g strong white bread flour (plus extra for dusting)
- 14 g dried active yeast
- 75 g caster sugar
- 90 g unsalted butter
- 275 ml full fat milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
The Filling
- 45 g unsalted butter (melted)
- 175 g light brown sugar
- 1-2 tbsps ground cinnamon
The Topping
- 300 g icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 3-4 tbsp water
Instructions
- Sift the flour into a large bowl, and add the caster sugar and yeast. Mix these together so its all evenly distributed.
- Rub the butter into the mixture so it resembles bread crumbs, like you would when making scones.
- Gently heat the milk until warm - but not piping hot. If heating in a pan, you want it to just about start having steam come out of the pan.
- Add the milk, vanilla, and egg to the dry ingredients.
- Knead the dough together for 7-10 minutes. It will be sticky at first, but it will soon come together. I use my KitchenAid with the dough hook to make this easier.
- Once kneaded, it will be springy to touch, and not sticky.
- Transfer into a lightly oiled bowl, and cover the top of the bowl with cling film. Let it rise for 1-2 hours, or until doubled in size.
- Whilst the bread is proving, whisk together the light brown sugar, and ground cinnamon for the filling. Leave to the side for now.
- Once the dough has risen, transfer to a lightly floured work surface, and roll out to a large rectangle. Mine ends up being about 50cmx30cm.
- You want it to be as even a rectangle as possible so its easier to roll up, and the dough can be thin here.
- Gently brush the surface with the 45g of melted butter, and then sprinkle over the sugar/cinnamon mix.
- Roll the dough from long side to long side, so that a ~long sausage~ is formed. Cut this evenly into 12 pieces.
- I cut the middle, and then the two halves into two more, and then each into three pieces to get my 12.
- Using a large rectangular baking dish, mine was 30cmx24cm roughly, put them in. They won't touch yet, but you want four rows of three basically.
- Cover the dish with clingfilm, and let them rise for another hour or so. By the end, they should all touch.
- Towards the end of the dough rising, preheat the oven to 180C/160CFan so that when its finished rising, you can put it straight in the oven.
- Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown and cooked through.
- Leave to cool, and then make the icing. Simply whisk together the icing sugar, vanilla and water until a thick icing paste is formed, and then spread over the rolls.
- Enjoy by breaking apart and eating all the gooey cinnamon goodness.
Notes
- These are best on the day of eating, but will last covered for a couple of days.
- You can easily reduce or increase the amount of cinnamon that you use in the recipe, but I typically use two tablespoons for mine. I like it really cinnamon-y.
- You could also use cinnamon in the dough, but I like the touch of the vanilla instead.
- The icing on top is optional, but I often find when you buy cinnamon rolls, there is icing on top.
- I use dried active yeast - but you can use quick yeast (same amount) or fresh yeast (use 28g). Some yeasts need activating before use so check package instructions!
ENJOY!
Find my other Bread & Cinnamon Recipes on my Recipes Page!
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J x
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Planning on making these for Father’s Day brekkie. Is it possible to make these the night before then bake the next morning? Or will that effect the dough?
Hey! You definitely can do – you can do the second prove over night, but it has to be in the fridge. This slows down the process of proving – you can then bake fresh in the morning!
Great! Thank you so much.
These cinnamon rolls are delicious, they’ve gone down very well in my house and won’t last long! I cheated a bit by making the dough in the bread machine (on the enriched dough setting) with 2 tsp of yeast: they’ve turned out beautifully.
I only have time savers yeast (only yeast that I can find during lockdown), How will this affect the proving time?
Hey! I’m not too sure – I’ve never used one with the same name, but I would just keep an eye on it because as long as the dough doubles in size each time you’ll be fine!
These are absolutely delicious but can I freeze them when they have baked?
Hey!! And yes you can!! x
A new family favourite! Thank you Jane! Our kitchen smells so lovely & cinnamon-y. This is the best recipe by far that I’ve tried.
Absolutely fantastic recipe, turned out brilliantly and my family adore them. I will definitely be making them again. The recipe is easy to follow, so really easy to make if you’re going to be home for the day. By that I mean overall the time spent actually making them isn’t much but you have to do things with the dough every now and then. I pottered about doing other things in between different stages.
Thanks for a great recipe, now I need to try one of your others ;-)xx
So easy to make, it’s a shame it takes so long as I spend half the day hungry waiting for these delicious things to be ready. I halved the recipe as it was only me eating them and it works just fine.
I’m struggling to find soft brown sugar in the shops at the moment. I have dark muscavado, Demerara or white sugar, which would be a suitable alternative if any? Thankyou x
I would use a mix of white and dark brown! X
Hi Jane, I made this recipe and froze half of them after the first prove and am now wondering how to cook the second batch. Should I defrost in fridge over night then allow to prove again for an hour once defrosted? Or if I leave them out on counter to defrost would they also prove as they defrost? I’m not really sure how bread bakes work!
I would leave the dough in the fridge over night! x
Hi Jane, these cinnamon rolls are divine and so easy to do. Thanks for yet another amazing recipe
Hi Jane
Could I make the dough before bed & let it prove overnight so I could bake them in the morning or would it over-prove?
Thanks 😊
You can, but they’d need to prove in the fridge over night – this slows down the process so makes sure that they don’t over prove!
Hi,
I am looking forward to trying this recipe- can I substitute semi skimmed milk for full fat?
Thank you
Generally, I do only recommend full-fat for baking (in basically all recipes) but you can use it – sometimes semi-skimmed can split mixtures though x
Hello there! I was thinking of baking these but making
24 portions and making knots and then putting them in 2 x 12 cup muffin trays. Unfortunately they won’t both
fit in the oven on the same rack at the same time and I
Have ready that baking 2 trays on top of each other
may Result in the bread not rising properly as the air is not circulating as well as if there was one train the
Middle. Can I bake them at the same time? Or is best
To keep one in the fridge while the other is baking? I’m just getting confused as to the order on proving etc. any advise would be great thanks! Thinking of baking them today in case you get a chance to read this 🙂
I never ever baked cinamonrolls,i tryed this recipe,and it is unbeliveable good!!!!easy to make!i had just 1 pack of yeast but worked well. I am sure i will gain at least 2 kilograms,it is so deliciouse :)))Thanks and hugs from Hungary,Europe!❤
Would I be able to substitute the dry yeast for fresh yeast? If so what amount would you use x
Yes! You use double the weight for fresh yeast! x
as i can’t get hold of any dried yeast at the moment would fresh yeast be okay to use instead? if so, what quantity would i need to use? thanks x
Yes definitely!! I love baking with fresh yeast! You typically use double the weight when using fresh instead of dried! x
Thank you for this wonderful recipe, Jane!
My kids love cinnamon rolls but the recipe I had for them was a lot more work and a little bit erratic of outcome. This was a doddle – the house smells divine and the tray of rolls is absolutely scrumptious.
I only had semi skimmed milk but it worked just fine.
I think I’ll mix it up a little next time and add cardamon to the dough, like the cinnamon rolls I had in Norway.
THanks so much for sharing!
Ahh yay!! Cardamon rolls sounds SO tasty! I will 100% be trying that!! x
Hi Jane
My rolls are currently on their second prove but I don’t want to bake them right away. Will it affect the bake if I leave them on the counter for 2 hours (after they are done proving) before baking?
Thank you!
It can do – over proving can ruin a bread style bake! The two hours extra will be two hours more proving time. Once proved, I would put them in the fridge as this very much slows it down (such as the second prove can easily be done in the fridge overnight as it’s much slower!)