Cinnamon Rolls
These are such awesome rolls topped with delicious, creamy frosting!
Ingredients
Activate the Yeast
- 2 1/4 tsp or 1 packet active dry yeast *see notes
- 1/4 cup warm water
- 1/2 TBSP sugar
Rolls
- 1 cup scalded milk *see notes
- 1 cup cold water
- 5-6 cups bread flour *see notes
- 3/8 cup vegetable oil
- 1/2 TBSP salt
- 3/8 cup sugar
Filling
- 1/4 cup salted butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- cinnamon
Frosting
- 1 8 oz block cream cheese
- 1-2 cups powdered sugar *see notes
Instructions
Activate the Yeast
- Add yeast and 1/2 tbsp sugar to 1/4 cup warm water and let sit to activate.
- Scald milk and add to cold water in a large mixing bowl if you are kneading by hand or Kitchen Aid mixing bowl if you are using the dough hook attachment.
- Add the activated yeast to the milk and water mixture. Add vegetable oil, salt and 3/8 cup sugar. Stir together.
- Add 5 cups of flour to the liquid mixture. Use the dough hook on your mixer on medium speed or a wooden spoon to begin mixing the flour with the liquids. Scrape the sides often to get everything incorporated well. Hand Kneading -Once incorporated, turn out on a floured surface and knead until it is a well formed ball. Dough Hook -If you are using your dough hook and mixer, continue on medium speed for a minute or two rather than kneading by hand. Assess the dough and slowly add more flour if it's really sticky - I add about a quarter cup at a time until I have a ball of dough that I can handle but is still just slightly sticky to the touch. Knead or mix well after adding flour.
- Place dough ball in a large greased bowl, cover with greased plastic wrap and place in a warm spot to rise. Make sure your plastic wrap is on loosely so gas can escape as the dough rises. I turn my oven on to preheat for a minute or two, then turn it off and place my bowl inside. Let rise until dough has doubled in size, about an hour and a half.
- Punch down and reshape. Let rise for another hour and a half.
- Roll dough out into a large rectangle that is about 1/3 inch thick and cover completely with a thin layer of room temp butter (1/4 cup).
- Add brown sugar and spread over dough. Sprinkle cinnamon evenly across brown sugar covered dough.
- Roll up and slice into rolls about 1 1/2 inch wide. I use floss to cut them easily, a serrated knife works well too. The rolls will be fairly tall if you cut them wider than 1 1/2 inch.
- Place in greased pans. If you cut the rolls 1 1/2 inch wide, this recipe will make two 9x13 pans and an 8x8. I put 6 rolls in the 9x13 pans and 3-4 in the 8x8 pan. MAKE SURE TO GIVE THE ROLLS PLENTY OF SPACE. They really expand in size and won't be nearly as light and fluffy if they don't have lots of room.
- Let the rolls rise for another 1-1 1/2 hours or until the rolls look filled out and have risen appropriately.
- Bake at 350° for 20-25 minutes or until golden on top. Remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes.
Frosting
- In a small bowl, beat cream cheese until creamy with a hand mixer.
- Add powdered sugar using a fine sifter to avoid any sugar lumps in your frosting.
- Beat powdered sugar and cream cheese together.
- Frost cooled rolls and enjoy!
Notes
Use regular active dry yeast. Since this recipe requires three rises, I've had trouble with quick rise or instant yeast not rising the last time.
To scald milk, heat milk in a saucepan until just before boiling temp. You can tell by the film the milk leaves on the pan if you swirl it around. See photo in instructions.
I like to use bread flour because it seems to make the rolls even fluffier, but all purpose flour works as well.
Sweeten the frosting to your taste, I prefer 1 cup of sugar rather than 2.
This recipe makes a large amount of rolls and is a great recipe to mix up, bake a pan and freeze the other pans to bake later. Simply create your rolls, place in a pan, cover in foil and place in the freezer before the last rise. When you are ready to bake them, remove from the freezer and thaw. Let rise and bake as you normally would. Whip up a small batch of frosting, frost the rolls and enjoy!