The perfect, quick and easy spiced cinnamon rolls, topped with a sweet cream cheese icing!
Special occasions call for special breakfasts. Holidays, birthdays, days you simply need to be special. We start each of these with an out-of-the-ordinary breakfast. In our house, this means homemade donuts, fresh bagels, and these amazing cinnamon rolls.
I have a go-to recipe for cinnamon rolls when I need to feed a crowd. A yeasted dough and plenty to satisfy a gathering of friends or a morning at church. But these cinnamon rolls are different. The yield is much smaller, but the effort and time required is also much less. (Psssst. They may even be better, but just don’t tell my friends lest they think I’ve been holding out.)
A simple biscuit dough, a sweet spiced filling, and a smooth and creamy icing. All in roughly thirty minutes.
If you were to make an appearance at our house on Christmas morning, you would see cinnamon rolls on our table. Along with eggs and sausages and perhaps even a smoothie or bowl of fruit. (We take breakfast seriously around here).
I give you fair warning, though. Once you’ve had these cinnamon rolls and seen for yourself how easy and how amazing they are, you simply will not be able to go back to the canned rolls. You can blame me while licking the sticky sweetness off your fingers and washing it down with a good cup of coffee.
Amazing 30 Minute Cinnamon Rolls
Watch how to make these cinnamon rolls.
Print
AMAZING 30 Minute Cinnamon Rolls
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 18 minutes
- Total Time: 28 minutes
- Yield: 8 cinnamon rolls 1x
- Category: breakfast
Description
The perfect, quick and easy spiced cinnamon rolls, topped with a sweet cream cheese icing!
Ingredients
Dough:
- 2 1/2 C flour
- 1 heaping tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 C whole milk
- 2 Tbsp melted butter
Filling:
- 1/3 C brown sugar
- 2 Tbsp granulated sugar
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp ground cloves, nutmeg, & allspice
- 1 Tbsp melted butter
Icing:
- 2 oz cream cheese, room temperature
- 1/2 C powdered sugar
- 1 Tbsp milk
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Melt 5 tablespoons of butter. Grease a round 9″ cake pan with 1 tablespoon of the melted butter.
- In a medium-size mixing bowl, combine the flour through the salt. Stir to incorporate. Stir together the milk and 2 tablespoons of the melted butter in a liquid measuring cup. Pour the milk/butter mixture into the dry ingredients and gently stir until a wet dough forms.
- Lightly dust a countertop with flour and turn the dough out onto the counter. Press the dough together and knead only two or three times (don’t overwork the dough!). Press the dough out into an 8″x10″ rectangle with your hands.
- Drizzle a tablespoon of the melted butter across the top of the dough and gently spread with a spatula. Mix together the filling ingredients with a fork and spread evenly across the dough, slightly pressing to help it adhere.
- Roll the rectangle into a 10″ log, pinching the end to seal. Use a dough scraper or knife to cut the rectangle into 8 even pieces. Place the cinnamon roll pieces in the prepared pan, starting with one piece in the center, and the remaining 7 pieces around the sides. Drizzle any remaining butter on top of the cinnamon rolls.
- Bake in preheated oven for 18 minutes.
- While the cinnamon rolls are baking, mix together the icing. Whisk the cream cheese, powdered sugar, and milk together in a small bowl. Add additional milk, a tablespoon at a time, until a desired consistency is reached.
- Let the cinnamon rolls cool for 5 minutes before transferring to a plate and drizzling on the icing.
Notes
Recipe adapted from Cook’s Illustrated.
TO MAKE AHEAD & BAKE NEXT DAY ::
Follow the recipe to prepare the cinnamon rolls up to putting them in the pan. (Don’t bake at all). Cover and refrigerate overnight. In the morning, remove the baking pan from the refrigerator and let stand on the counter for 10-15 minutes until it comes to room temp. Bake in preheated oven as directed and finish with icing.
TO MAKE AHEAD AND FREEZE ::
Make the cinnamon rolls as directed and bake for 10 minutes in preheated oven to let them rise. After ten minutes, remove the pan from the oven and let cool completely. Cover and freeze.
When you are ready to eat the cinnamon rolls, take the pan from freezer and heat the oven to 425. Cook for 20 minutes in hot oven, then continue with icing.
Sharing is caring! Help support this blog by pinning and sharing. Thank you!
These were spectacular! ! They had just the right amount of sweetness! Thank you for taking the time to post this recipe. God Bless
I am.a very experienced baker, and I honestly should have known better. This recipe is wrong on so many levels. The baking temp is way too high, and I knew just from reading the recipe it would make more than 8 rolls. I was fine with the recipe making more than 8- but knew from the smell of the dough that there was too much leavening in it..So if you want crispy (honestly burnt) dry cinnamon rolls that taste like baking powder these are for you. If you want something fast in the morning make a yeasted dough the night before.
★
Hi Grace, I’m sorry you did not enjoy the recipe. Thank you for taking the time to leave feedback. We will keep enjoying these cinnamon rolls, but everyone has their own preferences. Have a great day!
I wanted something sweet and quick for breakfast and I came across this. Absolutely perfect in every way. Will have this on hand as a quick staple recipe. SO GOOD.
★★★★★
I made these for breakfast and…they were SO amazing!
After seeing one comment suggested adding an egg to the dough, I did. And it turned out FANTASTIC!!!
Thank you SO much for this amazing recipe! I’m going to put it in my recipe book (and rare is the recipe that makes it there, lol!)
Thanks again! It was super easy to make too XD
★★★★★
Made this recipe at 9400 elevation with a few modifications – Excellent!!!
★★★★★
Made these this morning for a quick sweet breakfast before church. They turned out great and was a crowd pleaser for my guests that are accustomed to the longer yeast version I make. Blessings!!!
★★★★★
Loved the biscuit texture. I added an egg to the wet ingredients and loved how they turned out!
★★★★
half asleep, and ” add flour through salt” my sleepy brain read ” add flour and salt”. why not just instruct to combine the dry ingredients?
DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME WITH THIS RECIPE. Worst cinnamon rolls ever! Ones for the can taste better. The dough is the problem, tastes like a frosted biscuit.
I am sorry you did not enjoy the recipe. It is a less sweet version, quick like a biscuit. It’s not for everyone, I understand.
These were wonderful! Perfect amount of sweetness…not sickening or cloying like so many cinnamon roll recipes. I made these with Steve’s Gluten Free cake flour from Authentic Foods … amazing results! For those who want a slightly more flavorful dough…I would suggest adding a dash more butter and salt …and perhaps a splash of vanilla. But I thought these were great! My go to recipe now….thanks for sharing.
Love this recipe. It’s super easy and delicious.
★★★★★
So wanted to like these and very disappointed, no flavor to the crust and dry, crumbly. Won’t make again sadly
★
Sorry, these were way too crispy for me; and think the dough could have used some sugar, tasted like bread with icing and cinnamon. Also recipe for filling was unclear because I didn’t know if 1/4 tsp ground cloves, nutmeg and allspice meant 1/4 tsp of each spice or if I needed to use a total of 1/4 tsp with a combination of those spices. Won’t be making these again.
★
These were a winner at our house this morning!! I’m not sure I could go back to making them with yeast now. Thanks for the recipe.
★★★★★
I made these this morning while my kids hunted for eggs- yum! I love the crispy edges. Also, I doubled the icing and was NOT sad about it! 😜
BEWARE: These are so easy and so good, you will be making them ALL THE TIME like me. I find any kind of made-up reason to make these. I just got through making up my um-teenth batch of these to go with my afternoon coffee today. So, so good!
★★★★★
Hi Lisa,
Whipped up your Cinnamon Rolls Christmas morning for the first time! So glad I did! What a treat and so easy! They were such a hit! You are so right…..never buying the ones in the can ever again!
Thanks!
★★★★★
Is there a way to make these gluten free?
I would try to use a 1-1 gluten-free flour. King Arthur and Bob’s Red Mill makes two good options.
I just tried making them gluten free with the Bob’s red mill it was a disaster! Couldn’t roll them without it breaking. Any tips would be greatly appreciated
P.s. it was the 1 to 1 from red mill
I just made them gluten free and everyone loved them! They are dense but that is normal with gluten free flour. I needed to add additional milk to the dough so it was not crumbly but once I did that it worked!
★★★★
Very yummy. These took longer than expected ( by about 5 minutes in my oven), when finished they were delish. Shared them with the neighbors:) Thank you!
★★★★
Super yummy! Have made them twice. Second time turned out better because I watched your video and gleaned a couple helpful tips. THANKS for sharing with us!!!
★★★★★
Can the logs and slices be made smaller to make mini-rolls? Would this change the baking time? TIA!
Yes and yes. ? I would try reducing the time by a third for mini rolls.
12 minutes was perfect for the mini rolls. And this recipe is spot on. I will never make/eat them “out of a can” again!!
You forgot to add the baking soda in your instructions.
Olga, the addition of the baking soda is included in the step “combine flour through salt”.
Amazing!! So easy to make as well. I’m so happy I tried them. My kids have requested them several times already
★★★★★
I made these rolls this morning with my 4 and 6 year old. They were so easy to make! I loved the texture of them and the fact that they aren’t overly sweet. Thanks for the recipe.
★★★★★
Wonderful! Thanks for sharing.
Made this this morning with my 7 year old. She did most of the work . Super easy recipe & they came out yummy yummy! We had to work 4 more minutes. Was wondering anyway to use with full fat coconut milk or almond milk?
★★★★★
Thank you for the demo video, always a huge help!
Could one substitute 2% milk for whole milk?
★★★★★
Can these be refrigerated or frozen, before they are baked? I like to get Christmas breakfast ready the day before.
Yes. I just added a note about this. I partially baked the cinnamon rolls, then froze them and finished cooking in the oven from frozen the morning we needed them.
Thank you! I think I’ll assemble these Sunday for Christmas breakfast!