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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hey, I was wondering if I wanted my cinnamon rolls fluffier what do I do, should I add baking powder?
thank you.
Probably not – the fluffiness is usually down to how much they have proved or the actual baking!
Hi Malak, I did add a tiny bit of baking powder to the flour, as in a bit on the end of a teaspoon for halve the amount of ingredients and the results were good. It seems to help the yeast. I put all my ingredients into the bread maker and turn out after first prove. Then follow the recipe. Hope that helps.
Hi Jane, your recipes are absolutely amaaazing! After making the dough and leaving it to prove at room temp for 2 hours, I wanted to leave it in the fridge over night so would I roll out into shape before I put it in the fridge or shall I roll out after refrigerating?
After I’ve taken it out the fridge I will then leave at room to again for an hour or so? Please help xx
Hey! I would shape and fill them and add them to the dish, and prove in the fridge over night – and then just bake straight away!
Hi I have just made these and they are lovely. I am just curious compared to my previous recipe you use double the amount of yeast is there a reason why? I used 7g(1 sachet) before and yours calls for two?
I’ve always used 14g of dried yeast and find it works perfectly!
Thank you for your reply! They were amazing so I will stick with it! I just wondered if there was a reason! And just to be sure it’s 14g of either instant yeast or normal dried?
Yes so its 14g for any type of dried, or 28g if using fresh!!
I have made these a few times and are amazing! Would I be able to make these with gluten free bread flour?
Hey! I have never personally used gluten free bread flour but I don’t see why not!
Can I make these with Almond milk?
Yes that should be fine! x
Can they over prove in the fridge? I plan to put them in the fridge for the second prove around midday tomorrow and bake the next morning, is this too long in the fridge?
They can prove in the fridge, but that is quite a long time – ideally, you would start it later in the day but it should be okay!
I only have medium eggs, will they be OK?
Yeah, one medium should be fine!!
Hi Jane
I love cinnamon swirl buns so can’t wait to try your recipe out – I usually buy them from Tesco but yours look as good so I think I will try and make my own – just one question before I do as I’ll be using fresh yeast is it just a case of substituting the fresh yeast for the dried in the recipe ( I have already seen your advice of adding double amount for fresh) would I add the fresh yeast to the warm milk and then add it to the dry ingredients in that order? Does anything else need to change in the recipe by using fresh yeast? Thank you
Hey! Yes so I would add the fresh yeast to the milk, and just follow the rest of the recipe as it is! xx
Hi Jane, can you make this with normal flour as I don’t have the flour stated in the recipe. Thanks xx
It depends what you mean by ‘normal’ – plain flour can be used, but the texture is a lot more cakey compared to classically bready. I wouldn’t use self raising.
So delighted to find this delicious cinnamon bun recipe! Thank you. Without doubt the best I’ve made – & no need to tediously exercise my slow maths skills to convert the recipe from US cups to the more familiar metric quantities.
Hi Jane, the recipe looks great! Just wondering, could I leave the dough to prove for longer than 2 hours or is there a chance it could rise too much an ruin it? Thanks!
So you definitely don’t want it to over prove. The timing is an estimate anyway – for example, in the heatwave this week in the UK, the dough proves MUCH quicker than the two hours, whereas in the winter it could take quite a bit longer. The best thing is to do a prove in the fridge, but that would have to be over night as it really slows down the process!
Would it be possible to omit the egg for vegans and just use maybe cornflour instead?
I’m unsure of why you’d want to use cornflour instead of eggs to make it vegan? I’ve never seen this before! Personally I would substitute the whole milk for a good vegan milk such as unsweetened almond milk and then use an oil such as vegetable oil, maybe 50ml? x
I’ve made these twice now because they’re delicious, but I was wondering if I could add chocolate chips or raisins to the dough?
Hey! Yes you can – I usually just sprinkle them on when you add the cinnamon sugar though! x
LOVE your recipes. Plan on freezing half once baked, do we just leave to defrost as normal before eating? How long can they keep in the freezer?
Thanks!! And yes I would just freeze and then thaw – and I say 100% one month, but usually up to three is fine! X
Hi there! In the middle of baking this recipe.
We added the dried active yeast to the dry ingredients, and didn’t activate it beforehand – is that right? Or do we need to activate it before as per it says on the tin?
I think it’s still rising! So fingers crossed should work!
So these really can depend on the yeast, but usually it will be fine as it will activate itself whilst mixing in with the rest of the dough/proving! X