Homemade Cinnamon Rolls!
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These homemade cinnamon rolls are soft, fluffy, and loaded with a sweet cinnamon-sugar swirl. Made with an enriched yeast dough, they require 15 minutes of hands-on prep, 20 to 25 minutes to bake, and a total of 3 hours of proving time.
Mastering enriched dough
The foundation of a spectacular cinnamon roll is an enriched yeast dough. Unlike regular bread dough, an enriched dough contains butter, milk, sugar, and an egg. This combination weakens the gluten strands slightly, resulting in a beautifully soft, tender, and cake-like crumb rather than a chewy texture.
The absolute golden rule when working with yeast is managing your liquid temperature. When you warm your full-fat milk, it must be lukewarm, roughly 38°c. If the milk is too cold, the yeast will stay dormant and your dough won’t rise. If it is piping hot, it will instantly kill the yeast, leaving you with flat, heavy bricks. Aim for a comfortable warm bath temperature before pouring it into your dry ingredients.
- Flour – I use strong white bread flour to provide the high levels of gluten required for this dough
- Yeast – 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.
- Sugar – caster sugar provides the right texture and flavour profile for the dough, brown sugar is used later for the filling
- Butter – I always use unsalted block butter as you don’t want want to be salting this dough as it could react with the yeast, stunting it’s rising potential
- Milk – this must be full-fat milk as the high fat content is essential to provide the rise and texture we are looking for
- Vanilla – this will provide the sharpness and sweetness throughout the dough
- Egg – I use one large egg
The ultimate gooey cinnamon filling
To achieve that iconic molten, caramelized center, the balance of the filling is critical. I use a generous combination of softened or melted unsalted butter, light brown sugar, and a full two tablespoons of ground cinnamon.
Using light brown sugar instead of white caster sugar is essential here. The natural molasses content in brown sugar melts down beautifully into the butter during the bake, creating a dark, sticky, and deeply flavourful syrup that wraps around every single layer of the dough swirl.
Perfecting the topping and glaze
A traditional cinnamon roll is simply incomplete without a sweet finish. This recipe features a classic, thick vanilla icing sugar glaze that sinks into the warm crevices of the rolls right out of the oven.
However, if you want to elevate them to standard bakery style, you can easily transform this into a decadent cream cheese frosting. Simply beat 50g to 100g of full-fat block cream cheese into the icing sugar and butter mixture for a beautifully tangy contrast to the sweet cinnamon interior.
FAQs
Yes, this is a brilliant time-saver for a fresh morning breakfast. Follow the instructions right up until you place the cut rolls into your baking dish for their second prove. Instead of leaving them at room temperature, cover the dish tightly with cling film and pop it into the fridge overnight. The cold environment slows down the yeast. In the morning, bring the rolls back out to room temperature for 30 to 45 minutes to finish puffing up before baking as normal.
This usually happens if your milk was hot enough to kill the yeast, or if the room they were left to prove in was far too cold. Ensure your proving bowl is placed in a warm, draft-free spot, such as an airing cupboard or an oven that is turned off but has a bowl of boiling water placed at the bottom.
While a very sharp serrated knife works well, the ultimate baker’s trick is to use a piece of unscented dental floss or clean sewing thread. Slide the thread underneath the rolled dough log, cross the two ends over the top, and pull them tightly in opposite directions. It slices clean through the dough effortlessly without flattening the round shape of your rolls.
Yes, you can swap the full-fat milk for unsweetened almond, soy, or oat milk at a 1:1 ratio. Keep in mind that because alternative milks have a lower fat content, the dough may turn out slightly less rich, but it will still rise and bake beautifully.
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 180ºc / 160ºc fan 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.
- I use this KitcheAid Mixer
Storage and freezing
These homemade cinnamon rolls are undoubtedly at their absolute best when eaten warm on the day of baking, but they will keep incredibly well for up to two days when stored in an airtight container at room temperature. To restore that fresh-from-the-oven texture on days two and three, simply pop an individual roll onto a plate and microwave it for 10 to 15 seconds to soften the dough and melt the cinnamon filling back down.
If you want to freeze your bakes, you can freeze the fully baked rolls (ideally un-iced) for up to three months by wrapping them tightly in cling film and foil; simply thaw them at room temperature and warm them in the oven for 5 minutes before glazing. Alternatively, you can freeze the raw dough rolls directly in their baking dish after cutting them; when you are ready to bake, let them defrost and complete their second rise overnight in the fridge before putting them straight into a hot oven the following morning.
Related recipes
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.
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.
Made these for the first time yesterday after seeing them all over Instagram and so I had to jump on the band wagon!! They turned out beautiful. I made a little extra icing as mine didn’t spread as far. Will defo be making these again!
These were absolutely excellent and really fun to make!
I ended up throwing the dough away, it went very weird! Didn’t want to risk it, as they were a present for someone. But the second try following the recipe correctly went very well (:
Hi Jane, I added the milk before the butter by mistake, can I salvage the dough?? Thanks (:
How did it go? I would imagine it might make it more difficult to correctly mix in the butter but I could be wrong!
Hi Jane, is there anyway you can freeze these at all and if so, at what stage? We buy often from shops which are frozen and you just pop in the oven. Thank you,
!
I would freeze them just before the baking stage personally, but I’ve seen notes about part baking (10 minutes) and then freezing too x
Second batch made today, decided to freeze 2/3rds on this occasion before second prove.
At this point found my error, along the way I had picked up a jar of chilli with a bit less than 1 tbs left in and made it up to 2 tbs with cinnamon from new jar.
Different but surprisingly tasty, my wife said she thinks I have found a new breakfast snack. Can’t be too bad we have just shared another one!
Hi Jane,
This might sound strange and I’m being a pain but I’ve seen a recipe about banana bread cinnamon rolls I was wondering if I could add mashed banana to your recipe as it’s my favourite recipe of yours? Do you think it’s possible if so how haha! Thank you.! Xxxx
Honestly, I have absolutely no idea – it’s not something I have tried! I would imagine you could add in a mashed banana in place of the egg?! I will add it to my list of recipes to do though!
Best recipe for these. I’ve tried with icing and cream cheese icing and they are amazing. Turn out well every time x
Hi Jane, sorry if this has already been asked. The dired active yeast I have needs activating in 150ml of water. Would this make the dough to sticky along with the milk/egg? If so what brand of active yeast do you recommend using that doesn’t need so much liquid to activate?
Hope my question makes sense 🙈 x
Oh yes you definitely don’t want to do that as that will ruin the dough – add the yeast to the warm milk x
Thank-you Jane. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that 😂 x
These are amazing, really easy to make. I use a breadmaker for the mixing and the first prove and it means I can bung it all in and leave for a couple of hours. Have even experimented and used the same dough recipe for Belgian buns and they also came out brilliantly. And the blueberry and lemon rolls are also great. Thank you for such a fantastic recipe!!
Hi Jane! I’m planning on making these tomorrow but halving the recipe- will I have to half the proving times? thank you!
Bread proving isn’t quite like that – it can vary no matter the amount of dough. You need to follow the same rules though of when it’s doubled in size!
Made it twice already and it was delicious! Everyone loved them. Thanks for the recipe
Chuffed to bits with how mine have turned out!! Such an easy recipe!
I’ve made a cream cheese frosting (your recipe) can I cover the cinnamon rolls and then store them in the fridge? I’m worried it’ll affect the baked rolls….
Hey! So yes they will go a little more solid in the fridge, but they’ll need to because of the frosting. You can microwave them briefly (such as they often do in coffee shops) and it will just soften the frosting slightly but bring the cinnamon rolls back! x