Easy Quarantine Cinnamon Rolls
Several of my friends have talked about making cinnamon rolls from scratch during quarantine. It had never really occurred to me to make them from scratch. When I picture cinnamon rolls, I picture a blue tube of Pillsbury rolls-which are DELICIOUS don’t get me wrong. But this period of staying home has inspired me to try baking some things I’ve never made before. So a few days ago, I made homemade cinnamon rolls for the first time.
Why am I calling them “quarantine cinnamon rolls?” Because the ingredients are things I bet a lot of you have in your pantry right now. And also because technically everything I make right now can have the prefix of “quarantine” because it’s being made while I’m quarantining. ;)
This recipe makes 18 small/medium cinnamon rolls but you can make them any size you want.
After making this recipe, my advice is to roll out your dough with a rolling pin before you form the rolls (don’t roll it too thin though, it needs to be 1/4 in. thick). Rolling your dough makes it easier to ensure each roll is the same size and thickness. I’ll be more careful about that the next time I make this recipe but you can learn from my mistake!
When I first started googling cinnamon roll recipes, I noticed a lot of them call for yeast. I have a type of yeast at home but it’s specifically for a bread machine and I wasn’t sure how well that would work in the oven. Seeing yeast on the ingredients also made me think those recipes might involve a little more bread-making-chemistry than I felt like doing. So I searched for a less complicated recipe. I ended up finding one on AllRecipes.com that I’m going to share with you. I’m explaining it in my own words because I found some of the phrasing from the original recipe confusing. I also made a few slight changes to it based on what worked for me.
Easy Quarantine Cinnamon Rolls
Ingredients:
For the dough:
2 cups - all purpose flour
2 tablespoons - white sugar
2 teaspoons - baking powder
1 teaspoon - salt
3 tablespoons - softened butter
3/4 cup - milk (FYI, I only had evaporated milk (#lockdownlife), but it worked just fine)
1 egg
For the filling (it’s not cinnamon rolls without this!):
1/4 cup - white sugar
1/4 cup - brown sugar
1/2 tablespoon - ground cinnamon
(The original recipe I found calls for double the amount of cinnamon/sugar mixture I listed here, which was way too much for my preference and I ended up tossing half of it. If you think you’ll prefer more filling though, simply double those ingredients.)
For the cream cheese icing:
1/2 cup - white sugar (Or powdered sugar. I only had regular white sugar and my icing turned out great. Add more sugar depending on how sweet you like your icing-I don’t like mine too sickly-sweet but I know some people do!)
4 ounces - softened cream cheese
1/4 cup - softened butter
1/2 teaspoon - vanilla extract
Additional Ingredients:
1/4 cup - butter, divided
Steps:
Preheat oven to 400 F
Brush the bottom of baking dish (make sure it’s large enough for 18 rolls) with a layer (eyeball it) of melted butter.
Get out a mixing bowl. In this bowl, combine flour, baking powder, white sugar, and salt together. Get out your softened butter (3 tablespoons) and work it into the flour mixture.
Now, get out another mixing bowl. In this bowl, beat the egg and milk together. Combine the egg/milk mixture together with the flour mixture and stir together with a rubber spatula until a soft dough forms.
Carve out some space for a floured work surface (AKA, sprinkle some flour on a clean surface. For mine, I lay down some saran wrap on the countertop). Roll dough into a 1/4 inch thick rectangle.
Brush surface of dough with 2 tablespoons of melted butter.
Now it’s time to make the filling. Combine the filling ingredients into a small bowl. Sprinkle half of the filling mixture onto the bottom of the prepared baking dish.
Sprinkle some filling mixture over the buttered rectangle of dough. Roll dough around filling; forming it into a tube shape.
Cut tube into rolls and place the rolls into your prepared baking dish.
Set a timer for 20-25 minutes. Place rolls in the preheated oven and bake for 20-25 mins or until they look done.
While the rolls are baking, now it’s time to make the icing! Beat sugar, melted butter, and melted cream cheese together. Once mixed, add in vanilla extract and continue mixing until icing is smooth.
Once the cinnamon rolls are out of the oven, pour the cream cheese icing over your cinnamon rolls and ENJOY!
These are so nice with a cup of coffee. Have you ever made cinnamon rolls from scratch before? How did it go?
Hope you’re all having a great week so far!
-Emily