Craving the BEST, softest giant fluffy cinnamon rolls? WHO ISN'T?! This big cinnamon rolls recipe will knock your socks off and be a timeless recipe in your recipe box. How do I know? Because it's been in our family for generations.
Homemade cinnamon rolls are a timeless dessert. Everyone loves a big fluffy cinnamon roll that's perfectly ooey gooey!
Just the fact that there are that many adjectives for a single food gotta means it must be pretty darn good.
If you love these soft fluffy cinnamon rolls, you might also enjoy these birthday cake cinnamon rolls or these cinnamon sugar fruit nachos.
Why You'll Love This Recipe
- What's not to love about this giant fluffy cinnamon roll recipe?!? The texture is perfect and the flavor is spot on!
- Perfect dessert for holiday mornings and special occasions!
- Kid-friendly weekend treats the whole family will love.
- Ready to eat immediately!! While they are nice and warm dripping with all the cream cheese frosting.
Ingredients
There are three main components in this giant fluffy cinnamon roll recipe. Be sure to check the ingredient list in the recipe card for the full list and quantities of each.
- Yeast: This jumbo cinnamon roll recipe uses a dry fast acting yeast such as Saf-Instant.
- Sugar: You need white granulated sugar for the dough and powdered sugar for the icing.
- Butter and egg: For flavor and contributes to the soft texture of the cinnamon rolls.
- Flour: All-purpose flour gives the rolls their structure.
- Cinnamon: The most essential ingredient when making homemade cinnamon rolls.
- Cream cheese: Gives the icing a nice tangy flavor.
- Milk: Makes the icing creamier than using water to thin out the icing.
- Vanilla: Just a touch makes the icing taste even better.
How to Make Fluffy Cinnamon Rolls
While large cinnamon rolls are a pretty simple, no-fail recipe they do take time to make. So plan accordingly. What makes them extra soft and fluffy is allowing them time to rise.
- Make the dough and let it rise for 2-3 hours.
- When it is finished rising, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll it into a rectangle about ½ inch thick. Pour the melted butter over the top.
- Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture evenly on the surface of the dough.
- Roll up the dough into a log shape and cut with floss into slices about 1.5 inches wide. Let the rolls rise on a greased jelly roll pan for another 20 minutes, until they double in size. Then BAKE!
TOP TIP: We highly recommend using our cream cheese frosting but if you prefer more of a glaze, just omit the cream cheese from our frosting recipe.
- Combine the cream cheese, powdered sugar, vanilla and milk in a bowl and mix until creamy with an electric handheld mixer or stand mixer.
- Cover the freshly baked cinnamon buns with oodles of cream cheese frosting and eat it up while it is warm!
How to Store
Leftovers: If you are lucky enough to have any giant cinnamon rolls left, store them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to one week. If the house isn't too warm you can also store them at room temperature for a couple of days.
Freezer: To extend the shelf-life, freeze cinnamon rolls in a well-sealed container for up to six months.
Expert Tips
- Use lukewarm water to help yeast grow, but don't use hot water or you will kill the yeast.
- Let the yeast sit and bubble for about 10 minutes. This makes sure it's alive and working.
- Don't add all the flour at once. Incorporate the first four cups of flour and then add the next 1-2 cups slowly until the dough pulls away from the sides, but still has a slightly sticky texture.
- Knead the dough long enough. Let it go until it has a nice sheen to it. about 5 minutes.
- Make sure the butter and cream cheese are both room temperature before you make the icing. This results in the perfect smooth texture.
- Frost the cinnamon buns while they are still warm.
FAQs
The dough is ready when the texture is smooth and elastic and it has a slightly shiny appearance to it. In the stand mixer, this takes about five minutes. If kneading by hand it will take longer.
Yes, most definitely. This is what will make them big and fluffy so don't try to short-change it.
Yes, you can mix up the dough the night before and follow the recipe all the way up by cutting the cinnamon rolls into slices. Place them in the baking dish and allow them to do their second rise in the fridge overnight. In the morning you can finish off baking the rolls.
More Sweet Breakfast Recipes
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Giant Fluffy Cinnamon Rolls Recipe
Ingredients
Dough
- 3 cups Luke warm water
- 3 tablespoon Fast acting yeast dry acting like Saf-Instant
- 2 tablespoon Sugar
- 1 Cup Sugar
- ½ cup butter softened
- 1 Egg
- 1 tablespoon Salt
- 5-6 + cups Flour
Filling
- ½ cup melted butter
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 TBS cinnamon
Frosting
- 8 ounces cream cheese room temp
- ½ cup room temp butter
- 4 cups powder sugar
- 3-4 tbs milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
- Start out by mixing the luke warm water, yeast and 2 tablespoon of sugar.
- Let it grow for about 10 minutes to make sure yeast is good.
- Then add remaining sugar, butter, egg, salt.
- Start mixer and add flour 1 cup at a time. Around 4 cups go to ½ C at a time and allow a minute or two in between the next addition so the flour can be throughly mixed in. (About 5-6 cups total- see note).
- Once the desired texture is reached- so it is slightly sticky and has a shine to it, mix for another 2-3 minutes.
- Sift flour on a clean counter where you will rough out the dough.
- Tip the bowl over on side. This will let the dough rise out of the bowl and onto the flour with out sticking to the counter.
- Cover with a towel help to warm the dough and speed up rising. Let rise about 2-3 hours.
- When ready to prepare rolls, melt about 2-3 tablespoon butter on large cookie sheet. I like to do this by putting the butter chunk on the cookie sheet and placing the cookie sheet in the oven while it is preheating.
- Roll out dough with rolling pin to about ¼ inch thick and in as much as a rectangular form as possible
- Pour melted butter over surface and smooth out
- Sprinkle cinnamon sugar evenly over butter.
- Roll up dough
- Cut with floss into 1-1.5 inch wide rolls
- Place on a greased jelly roll pan and let rise for 20 minute more
- Bake at 350 for about 20 minutes
- Frost while rolls are still warm
Frosting
- Mix room temp cream cheese and butter till smooth.
- Slowly add powder sugar, alternating with milk and vanilla
- Mix till smooth and frost while rolls are warm
Notes
- Use luke warm water to help yeast grow, but don't use hot water or you will kill the yeast.
- Let the yeast sit and bubble for about 10 minutes. This makes sure it's alive and working.
- Don't add all the flour at once. Incorporate the first four cups of flour and then add the next 1-2 cups slowly until the dough pulls away from the sides, but still has a slightly sticky texture.
- Knead the dough long enough. Let it go until it has a nice sheen to it. about 5 minutes.
- Make sure the butter and cream cheese are both room temperature before you make the icing. This results in the perfect smooth texture.
- Frost the cinnamon buns while they are still warm.
Jenni says
This recipe calls for 3 TBSP yeast? That’s 5 packets....surely this can’t be correct. Is it supposed to be tsp??
Desarae says
no, it is correct- you want to use 3 TBS of a yeast like Saf- instant, not a packet of rapid.
KaTie says
Recipe was very wet for sure. After putting in 6 cups of flour it was still pretty gloopy and sticky. I had to add an additional 2 cups (8 total) to make it workable, even used bread flour for the last 2 cups in hopes for it to absorb the moisture better. It rose pretty quick, and I rolled it out after 2 hours of rising, and was easy to work with at that point. Wished I added more cinnamon/sugar mixture to it though, couldn’t really taste it when eating the final product. Got 24 generous rolls out of the recipe, and let them rise for a good 40 minutes. Also had to bake them longer than stated, at 20 minutes the tops were starting to get lightly golden, but the middle rolls (going 3 across) still felt doughy when I poked them. So I baked them for about 40 minutes total. May have overbaked the outer edge rolls a little, but I wanted to make sure the middle ones were done. All in all a good cinnamon roll, just needed some tweaking.
Peggy says
These were amazing, so soft and delicious! Our Easter Breakfast treat!
Cassandra says
This recipe turned out great me! But I got 20 5-6” cinnamon rolls somehow. I cut them at 1.5” like it said. I am not complaining though! I will definitely be making this again. Thank you.
SallY says
Followed recipe to a T. Dough was runny and even with about 2-3 cups extra flour. What speed do you set your mixer to? Does that even matter? The dough was too sticky and had to toss. I feel I’m fairly experienced at baking so I’m disappointed this recipe did not work out.
Desarae says
hi, Sally, I'm really sorry that they didn't turn out for you? are you positive your yeast was active...like It bubbled up quite a bit? Are you located in the states? could there be a difference in our types of flour? My only other suggestion would be our climate- if you are in warm humid climate that will definitely impact the dough of this recipe causing you to use more flour than is required. I've made this recipe 100's of times and never had any issue like this. i'll test it again though!