Easy Cinnamon Rolls
These humble cinnamon rolls come together quickly with pantry ingredients–flour, sugar, cinnamon, a little powdered ginger. Further, they’re leavened with baking powder, meaning you can mix up the dough, roll it out, and bake it.
Even better, these cinnamon rolls are sturdy. You can freeze the unbaked dough in the baking pan and plonk it into the oven at your convenience, a quality in short supply right about now.
Into the kitchen.
This recipe requires a cup of dairy. I baked these with yogurt, a mixture of yogurt and half-and-half, and heavy cream. I had the best result using heavy cream–double cream to our British friends–but use what you have to hand. They’re called easy cinnamon rolls for a reason, and that reason is not to send you shopping.
The dough is not unlike a scone dough: cold bits of butter are folded into a flour mixture. I find my hands are best for this, but two forks or a pastry cutter also work well. You could also use a mixer or food processor, but that creates washing up. This is not a desirable outcome. Lacking attractive photos of the flour mixture, I give you an early version of the cinnamon rolls. Neater looking, but not very tasty.
After blending the butter and flour, you add the dairy. At this point you may wonder whether a dough will emerge from the floury mess before you. Stay the course: I promise a dough is in there. Dump the mess on to a clean counter or work top and gently knead until the ingredients cohere. You may need to add water, flour, or both. It is difficult to give precise instructions, as weather, flour, and kitchen environments impact how doughs behave. Just remember you are the boss of the dough, not the other way around.
Once the dough finds itself, it’s wise to leave it alone a few minutes while you clean up. Yes, you can make the recipe straight through, but a quick clean-up now will spare you scrubbing later. And while this dough doesn’t need a rest, it improves with a mini-nap. Most of us do.
So wash up, check your email, move your sheets to the dryer, and fetch your favorite rolling pin.
Mix the cinnamon, sugars, and ginger in a small bowl. Set it nearby along with with the butter.
Gently press and roll the dough into square measuring roughly 14 inches x14 inches/38cm x38 cm. The measurements don’t need to be exact-I offer them as a guide. Below, an early attempt.
The dough may crack along the edges. Don’t worry. Just patch it with your fingers. Should the dough really fight you, allow it to rest for a few minutes. Add flour to the work surface and the rolling pin as needed.
Once you have your rough square, or oblong, smear the butter over it, leaving a scant 1/2 inch/ 1.25 cm margin.
Scatter the cinnamon mixture over the butter evenly.
Now roll the dough up from the long end, pressing the edge to seal.
Organized bakers use rulers to mark off the dough in 12 perfectly even slices. Lesser sorts eyeball it, ending up with 11 reasonably sized rolls and a 12th mangled offcut. Now is the time remember most of us did not attend culinary school and are around here for amusement purposes.
Nor does it occur to us amateur types to trim the edges of our dough. Until, of course, it’s too late. Reader, they were eaten.
A note about the baking tin. After repeatedly stuffing the rolls into a 12-well muffin tin, I moved the entire shebang to a buttered 9×9/22cmx22cm tin.
Let us discuss the glaze.
Sifting is one of those baking chores one can often avoid by whisking or forking vigorously or simply ignoring. Unfortunately, confectioner’s sugar–icing sugar to our British friends–is an ingredient that sneers at such tricks: this substance loves to clump into small, rockish pebbles.
Do I own a sifter? Does anyone? I have no idea. I do know I spent a good chunk of time rubbing confectioner’s sugar through a fine sieve in pursuit of glaze. Such is baking.
I am also honor bound to tell you to never, ever to pour hot glaze over hot cinnamon rolls in a hot kitchen. The sugar aerosolizes, meaning it becomes airborne, then settles everywhere. It is absolute hell to clean off a kitchen floor. Learn from my mistake.
—
If you looked even glancingly at the intro photograph, you doubtless noticed the cinnamon rolls are not Instagram ready. Charitably, they’re….rustic. But as I write, they’re long gone, and my recipe testers, aka my husband and his morning caregiver, are begging me to bake more. Looks ain’t everything.
Easy Cinnamon Rolls
yield: 12 cinnamon rolls
Prep: about 20 minutes to prepare and 20 minutes to bake
I am indebted to Clare Ptak’s Violet Bakery Cookbook for help with this recipe.
Please read the notes, below, before baking.
For the dough:
12 tablespoons/1.5 sticks/6 ounces/170 grams cold unsalted butter
2.5 cups/567 grams/20 ounces all purpose flour
2 teaspoons fine salt
2 tablespoons baking powder
1 cup/8 ounces/227ml dairy, preferably heavy cream
Generous tablespoon white sugar
For the filling:
1 tablespoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon white sugar
1/2 teaspoon powdered ginger
4 tablespoons/1/2 stick/2 ounces/60 grams room temperature unsalted butter
For the glaze:
2-3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
approximately 1 cup/7-8 ounces/200 grams confectioner’s sugar, sifted
Preheat the oven to 375F/190C
Butter a 9×9/22×22 baking tin. If you don’t have one this size, 9×13/22×33 will work, too.
Make the dough:
Put the butter in the freezer. If this isn’t possible, refrigerate it. You want the butter to be as cold as possible.
Put the flour, salt, and baking powder in a large bowl and blend with a wooden spoon or large fork.
Take part of the butter from the freezer and slice into small pieces with a sharp knife. I cut the butter on a piece of wax paper, which makes clean-up easier. Put the butter bits into the flour bowl. Keep going until all the butter is sliced.
Using two knives, your clean hands, a pastry cutter, or mechanized implements, blend the flour and butter until you have a mixture resembling lumpy oatmeal.
Add the dairy to the buttery flour. Mix with a wooden spoon or your clean hands. At this point you will have a floury mess.
Rinse your hands. Prepare a countertop or other work area. Have a cup of water and extra flour handy in case either are needed. Grab your favorite rolling pin. You’ll need it in a few minutes. No rolling pin? Your hands will work.
Dump the floury mass on to the work surface. Knead gently until a dough begins forming. Additional flour and/or water may be needed. Trust your instincts. Don’t worry about adding too much water or flour, just knead. The dough will find itself.
Once you have a dough, roll it into a rough ball. Leave it sitting while you wash up. Trust me, better to wash up now than try and scrape encrusted dough off your bowl later.
Mix the dry filling ingredients into a small bowl. Set it near the dough, along with the softened butter.
Scatter the work surface with a little flour.
Using your hands and the rolling pin, press and roll the dough until you have a oblong/square measuring roughly14x14in/38x38cm. If the dough fights you, let it rest for a few minutes. If the edges crack, pinch off bits of dough and patch the cracks.
Add the filling:
Using a knife or your clean fingers, smear the butter over the dough, leaving a 1/2 inch/1.25 cm border.
Using a spoon, or, again, your clean fingers, spread the cinnamon mixture evenly over the surface of the dough, up the buttery edge.
Starting at the long end closest to you, roll the dough up tightly, as if rolling a carpet or jelly roll. Once the dough is rolled up, press the edge against the completed roll. It will stick easily.
Using a ruler, or your best eyeball measurement, cut twelve individual cinnamon rolls. Place each roll down flat in the baking pan until all twelve are done.
Bake the cinnamon rolls for 20-25 minutes. A tester will come out clean.
Allow rolls to cool completely on a rack before pouring glaze over them.
To make the glaze:
To sift lumpy confectioner’s sugar, tip spoonfuls of sugar into a sieve set over a bowl.
Mix the lemon juice with the sifted sugar. I did this in a Pyrex measuring cup with a lip, which made pouring easy.
Easy cinnamon rolls may be frozen in their baking pan, unbaked and unglazed. Bake from frozen. Allow additional baking time, and glaze once they’re fully cooled.
Baked cinnamon rolls keep at room temperature for two days. After that, it is best to refrigerate them. Reheat cinnamon rolls in a toaster oven or low oven. Cinnamon rolls also freeze well, though the glaze suffers a bit.
Notes:
For detailed baking notes, please see the blog post.
The cinnamon rolls may be baked with any kind of dairy, but I had the best results with heavy cream.
Do not glaze the rolls until they’re completely cooled: the glaze can aerolsolize, sending sugar drifting all over the kitchen and making a huge mess. Learn from my mistake.
The cinnamon filling can be tampered with to good effect: scatter some currants or raisins over the dough before rolling it up. A tablespoon of finely chopped nuts is nice, provided nobody is allergic. Or consider adding quarter teaspoon of ground cloves, a grating of nutmeg, or a tiny pinch of allspice.
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