The BEST Pillowy Soft Homemade Cinnamon Rolls {Video Post}

Okay! Hold Up! 🙌 These are seriously the BEST cinnamon rolls that you are ever going to make. They're soft, full of gooey cinnamon roll filling, and topped with cream cheese frosting. Plus, I'll show you alllll the cinnamon roll variations.

This recipe is a family tradition in our house. We make it every Christmas morning.

However, I see no reason that you have to wait for a holiday to make these tasty cinnamon rolls! Got a special someone you'd like to surprise with breakfast in bed? Even better, send this link to someone else. Hint, hint!

The back story:

In our house, we always have our big holiday dinner on Christmas Eve. That way, we can get to bed and wake up early to open presents, stuff our faces again, and then take an afternoon nap.

Christmas Eve dinner must include a batch of my Aunt Donna's Dinner Rolls. Those puppies are the softest, fluffiest, most amazing dinner rolls ever!

Why am I even talking about dinner rolls in a cinnamon roll recipe post? Okay, I'm getting to that. The cinnamon roll dough that I use in this recipe is the same dough that I use to make dinner rolls.

My mom always made a double batch of the dough for Christmas Eve dinner. Half would be baked up that night, and we would have rolls with dinner. The other half, she would make into overnight cinnamon rolls from scratch.

In the morning when we woke up, she would pull them out of the fridge, warm up the oven, and bake a fresh batch of gooey, sticky cinnamon buns in no time. This allowed her to enjoy sipping her coffee and enjoying the morning while the house filled up with the smell of cinnamon.

But wait, it gets even better! To make this recipe do triple duty, save the leftover dinner rolls and turn them into my Creme Brûlée French Toast. Who says the holidays have to be stressful for the chef? I've got your back!

What You’ll Love About This Recipe

• Soft & Fluffy: The cinnamon roll dough in this recipe is so soft and fluffy. It makes the absolute best sweet rolls.
• Foolproof: This recipe is foolproof. I've made it a hundred times, and every single time, it comes out perfectly risen and delicious.
• Flexible: This dough is really forgiving. It works well if you want to bake these the same day, and is also great for overnight cinnamon rolls that you leave in the fridge to bake the next day.
• Gooey perfection: The cream cheese icing gives the perfect amount of tang to the sugary goodness of the cinnamon filling.

Recipe Notes

If you like Cinnabon, then you are going to love these. This is the BEST cinnamon roll recipe, and it can be made a thousand different ways.

Once you make a batch of the original, you can try one of the other varieties. My husband doesn't like nuts, but I love to add toasted pecans to my cinnamon rolls. You decide!!!

What you'll need

Most of the ingredients that you'll need to make this homemade cinnamon roll recipe are probably already in your pantry. You can make the cinnamon roll icing with cream cheese, or if you want, you can skip it and make a simple glazed icing.

• All-purpose flour
• Water: I use water as the liquid in this recipe, but you can also use milk here. You might notice that a lot of cinnamon roll recipes call for milk. (This is my great-grandmother's recipe. It called for water, so that's how I wrote it!)
• Sugar: Confectioners' (powdered) sugar, granulated sugar, and brown sugar.
• Butter and Cream Cheese: I also use a little warm milk or half and half to thin the icing, if needed.
• Eggs
• Yeast: These rolls are made from a basic yeast dough. Make sure you use active dry yeast and that your yeast is fresh. Use one packet or two and a quarter teaspoons.
• Cinnamon and cardamom: The cardamom is optional; the cinnamon is absolutely required.

How to make Cinnamon Rolls: Step-by-Step Instructions

Step 1: Make the cinnamon roll dough.

Place the cinnamon roll dough in a lightly greased bowl and cover it with plastic wrap or a clean towel. Let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about an hour or so. Make sure to use a large bowl for this step so the dough will have plenty of room to rise until double.

Step 2: Roll out the dough.

On a floured surface, roll out the dough to a rectangle. Shoot for about 18 by 12 inches.

Step 3: Butter the cinnamon roll dough with room temperature butter.

Alternatively, you can mix the brown sugar and spices with the melted butter and spread it all at once. I've done it both ways, and either way will give you the same results. Leave a ½-inch space unbuttered along the outer edge so that the dough will seal when you roll it up.

Step 4: Sprinkle on the brown sugar and cinnamon.

Go on, eat a pinch. You're the grownup, so you can do whatever you want. Heck, eat two pinches!

Step 4: Roll the dough.

Roll the dough from the long edge. Seal the edges by pinching the dough gently.

Step 5: Cut the roll into 12 or 16 individual rolls.

Use waxed dental floss to cut the rolled dough, first in half and then in half again. Finally, cut each remaining piece of rolled dough into three or four pieces to make 12 or 16 rolls. This will just depend on how much room you have in your baking pan and how thick you want your cinnamon rolls.

Step 6: Place the cut cinnamon rolls into a buttered 9x13 inch baking pan.

Step 7: Let the dough prove one more time.

Cover with plastic wrap and then a clean kitchen towel. This step will usually take about an hour, or about 30 minutes in a preheated oven.

PRO-TIP: Allow the rolls to rise for about an hour. They should be about doubled in size. Cinnamon rolls that have doubled in size look about like this. Now they are filling up the pan.

Step 8: Bake.

Preheat the oven and then bake the cinnamon rolls for about 15 minutes at 350℉. I like to use a probe thermometer to make sure the rolls are 190℉ in the middle.

Sometimes it's so hard to tell if they are done! There's nothing worse than doing all that work and finding that they are still undercooked in the middle. Using a thermometer will give you that fluffy texture that you get from a professional bakery.

Step 8: Cream cheese frosting.

After cooling, frost the cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting (my family's personal favorite), or make a simple glaze in a small bowl.

Variations

Pecan Sticky Buns: Add about a half of a cup of chopped and toasted pecans to the filling.

Orange Sweet Rolls: This amazing variation just takes a few substitutions. Use ½ cup of orange juice and ½ cup of water or milk for the liquid in the dough. For the filling, you are going to want to fill these with butter, sugar, a drop of vanilla extract, and 2 tablespoons of orange zest. You'll substitute this filling for the cinnamon filling.

Pineapple Rolls: I have an entire post of these Hawaiian Pineapple Sweet Rolls. Trust me, you do not want to miss out on this recipe.

Glazed Cinnamon Rolls: If you're not into the heavy cream cheese frosting and like a lighter glazed cinnamon roll, no problem. Simply add milk, or even orange juice, to the powdered sugar. Add about 3 tablespoons to start and then continue to add more liquid until the glaze is the consistency of a thick honey. I like to add the glaze the while they are still warm.

FAQs and Expert Tips

OVERNIGHT CINNAMON ROLLS

If you want to prepare these sweet rolls the night before and bake them in the morning, here's how!

1. Place the rolls in a 9x13-inch cake pan and cover tightly with plastic wrap. 
2. Place the rolls in the refrigerator right away.
3. In the morning, take the rolls out of the refrigerator. I usually place the covered pan on a baking sheet and let it warm on top of the oven as the oven is preheating to 425℉. This helps the rolls to rise a little faster. 
4. Let them rise for about 40 minutes, up to two hours. 
5. Bake at 350℉ for 28 to 35 minutes, until golden brown. 

Other Baking Recipes That You’ll Love

• Apple Cider Donuts
• Apple Cake with Vanilla Pastry Cream
• Pumpkin Old Fashioned Donuts
• Pineapple Sweet Rolls