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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Could I substitute the 75g of caster sugar for light brown sugar.
I do wonder sometimes if publishers of recipes actually use them but clearly Jane has polished up this recipe from her own personal use and it rocks!!. I particularly liked the tip about using the KitchenAid. I just added all the ingredients into the mixing bowl (including fresh yeast) and mixed on speed 1 until all was combined then on speed 2 for about 4 minutes until the dough came cleanly off the bowl sides. I then just finished off the kneading by hand – because I like to – and followed the rest of the recipe as written. Beautiful. I made some of the dough into single rounds as well as doing the batch bake. I am freezing a couple of the singles and will ice them when they thaw. Thank you Jane.
I’ve made these lots of times with several fillings now. The bread recipe is fantastic. I’m just wondering if I can get away with a mince pie filling to make them Christmassy?
Could I use a gluten free bread flour? Or would this affect the structure
Jane, you need to rewrite the bit where you always say…. “these will last 3 days/ 5 days” etc. Substitute “will” for “could”. (if you hide them well enough)
NOTHING i make from your recipe book, even gets the chance to cool down…. unless i hide it. 🤣🤣🤣
Love this recipe. Thanks so much for sharing. I made a cinnamon version for the adults and did one with Nutella instead of cinnamon and sugar for the kids. Both were a big hit.
how do you make them bigger and also they disappear so quickly in our household!!! 🙂
I made this last night, the dough tasted a bit bland and I think the brown sugar for the filling wasn’t enough. I think next time i’d adjust the recipe however it was still nice.
Would it be possible to make them and freeze some, unbaked.
With the cream cheese frosting these are the best thing I have ever eaten. So want to make again tonight but I only have semi skimmed milk. Would these still work?
It should do – but whole milk is always better for the best dough!! x
If I wanted to make these for breakfast, at what point could the dough be rested over night? Is love to make for breakfast on Xmas day with a bicks fizz! But don’t want to be up at 3am starting to make them!
Hiya! Do the final stage in the fridge, and then bake them when you wake up! Hope this helps x
I’ve made these Cinnamon Rolls twice now & they are honestly absolutely delicious & was a big hit in my
house & also when i took some to family for brunch. They are definitely well worth making & I will definitely be making lots more of these xx
Me and the kids love these for breakfast. Just wondering if you could freeze them at the 2nd prove stage and cook direct from frozen??
Hiya! Yes you can x
The BEST cinnamon rolls we have ever had. Bought or homemade- these are the best. Simple recipe and steps, love love love.
I absolutely love making these, they disappear very quickly in our house.
Love this recipe! I’ve only been bread and dough making for about a month and found this clear and easy to follow. The were delicious! All the tips and comments here so helpful – I’m going to try overnight fridge trick so I can bake them fresh in the morning and take to work and using the dough for Belgian buns too!
This recipe looks amazing I can’t wait to try! Would it be possible to leave the rolls in the fridge overnight for their second rise?
Ooo could you share this trick pls? X
Thank you for this delicious recipe. I can’t wait to try them. I m not very good baking with yeast. What temperature do you prove the dough? Can I use the airing cupboard to prove the dough?
Thank you.
Pat
Hiya! I believe the optimum temperature for proving time is 25c!xx
These are amazing and as always great steps to follow. These actually are a favourite of mine to both eat and bake lol. Ive struggled recently with some rolls proofing more than others and couldn’t figure for the life of me why. So I bought a probe to test the milk temperature as obviously too hot can kill the yeast, however always followed your notes on just seeing steam come out the pan. It actually was around 140f so far too high so trying it with the probe this time, and 2nd proof in the fridge overnight. Let’s see how that works. As always, delicious and yummy and moreish and glad I found you! Xx
Hi Jane – super excited to try these at the weekend! Quick question about the icing – whenever I try make an icing sugar icing (icing sugar and water) it always turns out really runny and clear as opposed to thick and white like your pictures. Where am I going wrong?