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! Instead of using a baking dish can I just put them on the baking tray so that they won’t touch each other?
Big fan of your blog!
Hello! You can do but the baking time is designed for them all to be touching. Thank you so much x
Planning I making these tomorrow, just curious if a cream cheese icing would be better for these?
Yes it would be lovely!
Hi Jane, if I prepped this up to the second prove and left in the fridge overnight, would I need to then give it an hour or so in the morning out of the fridge or do you think it could go straight from the fridge to the oven?
Many thanks – Sally
Love your recipes, my favourite if I had to pick would be the Bakewell blondie 😋.
I would bake straight from the fridge but for a bit longer – but taking out for a while first would be good! x
Hi Jane! Why the crust of my rolls become crispy instead of soft?
The outside of the dough thats been exposed in the oven will naturally be harder than the inside!
I left mine in oven for 20 minutes and they were burnt on the bottom and most of the filling ended up melting out and becoming burnt onto the tray. Also I used wholemeal bread flour which I wouldn’t do again as they didn’t taste very nice! 😕 many other recipes by Jane I’ve tried have been successful so I’m assuming it’s something I’ve done wrong.
I’ve tried other recipes, but this is by far the best. Easy to follow and works beautifully. Absolutely delicious and a weekend family favourite. Thank you!
Love how easy this recipe is – just waiting on the first prove and wondered if I need to grease or line the dish/tin before putting them in? Don’t want them to stick (it’s a non-stick tin that I plan to put them in to bake). Thank you!
I don’t personally as I use a lovely dish and it doesn’t need it! x
Hi Jane,
I have about 75g of brown sugar. Am I able to substitute it?
Hii! Yes you can use caster sugar or dark brown soft sugar!x
Would I be able to make the dough the day before? Thank you!!
You can prep up until the second prove the day before – and do the second prove (when its ready in the baking dish in the correct shapes) in the fridge over night x
Amazing – I’ve never made enriched dough before but these came out fabulously! These were a bit of spontaneous bake so we didn’t have the ingredients for the icing and they were still delicious. Can’t wait to make them again with icing.
I have been craving cinnamon rolls for a while, and these really fulfilled that crave. Super easy recipe, forgot to add the egg, but they turned out fine, for extra kick i added cinnamon to the icing. Thanks for publishing this recipe!
Just made these as per the recipe and they turned out amazing. Will definitely be making these again.
Thanks for this recipe. I made them last weekend and they were seriously delicious. Just wondering if switching the cinnamon for cocoa powder would work to make a chocolate version? Any other changes I would need to make? Thanks in advance x
Chocolate fillings don’t quite work the same unfortunately, but I will be posting a chocolatey version soon!
I love this recipe and always use it but I was wondering could the dough recipe be used as the base for belgian buns? I want to make some gift boxes and don’t really want to make 2 different doughs if I don’t have too. Many thanks
Yes it can!! x
Such an amazing recipe and so easy to follow. Will definitely be making again as cinnamon buns are my absolute favourite but was always too nervous to attempt to make them myself! Thanks x
Hi Jane, I made way too much brown sugar/cinnamon mix, is it okay to keep it in jar to use another time?
Yes definitely!!
Hi Jane, absolutely loving your recipes!! Quick question about the yeast – the dried active yeast I have says to reactivate in warm water before using. Will the rise still be ok if I add it to the dry ingredients, (without reactivating) as per your recipe?
Thanks so much! 🙂
You can add the yeast to the warm milk to activate it x