A full year ago, I woke up with a Cinnamon Roll craving, rolled out of bed and made the only other traditional* Cinnamon Roll recipe on this blog. It’s a Pioneer Woman classic that I hadn’t remade in the ten years since I posted about it**, and I was underwhelmed. This is mostly due my experiences with enriched yeast doughs (containing butter, eggs or both) over the years and this dough was a bit lackluster in comparison.

At the time I visited The Pancake Princess Blog to see which recipe was the winner of her Cinnamon Roll Bake Off, and here I am a year later finally putting it to the test.

This recipe is a labour of love and time. It uses an enriched yeast dough (with both butter AND eggs), a weird dough folding process, an overnight rise and finally a trick to making sure the rolls are as soft as possible (spoiler alert: you spread a thin layer of icing over the rolls as soon as they come out of the oven).

Is all this worth it? A resounding YES. They are just as described: buttery, pillowy, soft and gooey. I followed the recipe exactly and don’t have any notes other than it took way longer for the dough to come to room temperature in the morning. I tried to rush it a bit, but cold dough is not cooperative to roll out, so give yourself more time than you think for that step.

I assume I will host or attend brunch at some point in 2022 (fingers crossed) and these Cinnamon Rolls will be coming with me!

*There are lots of other varieties like Strawberry Rhubarb, Peach Cobbler and Pumpkin.

**Truly a thrill to read this post and see the strides I’ve made with working with yeast over the past decade.

Soft Cinnamon Rolls

Source: The Vanilla Bean Baking Blog

Ingredients

Dough

  • 4 eggs, room temperature
  • 3/4 cup milk, warm (between 100-110 degrees)
  • 1/4 cup honey
  • 4 cups flour (568 grams)
  • 2 1/4 tsp instant yeast
  • 2 tsp salt
  • 10 tbsp (1 1/4 sticks) butter, very soft room temperature

Filling

  • 1/2 cup brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp cinnamon
  • pinch salt
  • 2 tbsp butter, melted and cooled

Icing

  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, room temperature
  • 4 oz cream cheese, room temperature
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 cup icing sugar

Directions

  1. For the dough, start by whisking together the eggs, milk and honey in a small bowl.
  2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, yeast and salt. Pour in the egg mixture and use a spatula to mix until combined.
  3. Add the butter, 1 tbsp at a time until it is incorporated into the dough (this will take some patience and elbow grease). When all the butter has been added, mix vigorously for about two minutes.
  4. Spray a large bowl with non-stick spray (or coat it lightly in vegetable oil), and transfer the dough to this bowl. Cover it with plastic wrap and let rise for 30 minutes.
  5. When 30 minutes is up, uncover the bowl and place your fingers or a spatula underneath the dough and pull it up and fold it over itself. Turn the bowl and repeat this again, 6-8 more times (refer to original blog post for a GIF of what this should look like). Re-cover the bowl and let rise again for 30 minutes. Repeat this process 3 more times, for a total rise time of 2 hours and total of 4 foldings. When done, cover the bowl again and place in the fridge overnight or up to 72 hours.
  6. About 3 hours before you want to eat the cinnamon rolls, remove the dough from the fridge and bowl, and knead on a lightly floured work surface 10-12 times. Shape the dough into a ball, dust with flour, cover with a kitchen towel and let it come to room temperature (this takes longer than you think).
  7. While the dough is warming up, get out a 9×13″ baking pan. Line the bottom with parchment paper and spray with non-stick spray.
  8. Get the filling ready by mixing together the brown sugar, cinnamon and salt in a small bowl. Have the melted butter close by.
  9. Roll the dough into a 16×12″ rectangle (as best you can, I always end up with a more oval shape). Brush the dough with melted butter, and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture evenly overtop, pressing it lightly so it sticks to the butter.
  10. Starting at a long side, roll the dough into a tight cylinder. Pinch the seam gently to seal it, and rest the log on the seam. Slice the log into 12 equal pieces and transfer them to the pan. I re-shaped them lightly into circles as much as I could. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and let rise until rolls have doubled in size (about 1 – 1 1/2 hours).
  11. Preheat the oven to 350, remove the plastic wrap and bake the rolls for 27-32 minutes until they’re golden brown.
  12. While the rolls bake, mix up the icing. In a medium bowl, mix together the butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add the vanilla and salt and mix again until incorporated. Add the icing sugar and mix on low until combined, and then mix on medium until light and fluffy.
  13. When rolls are done, remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes. Use an offset spatula to apply a thin layer of icing over top of the rolls, using about 1/3 of the total icing. Let rolls cool for another 15-20 minutes, then spread the rest of the icing overtop.