Craving the BEST fluffiest, softest giant cinnamon roll? WHO ISN'T?! This fluffy cinnamon roll 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's for generations.
Homemade Cinnamon Rolls are a timeless dessert. Everyone loves a big, fluffy warm gooey cinnamon roll. Just the fact that there are that many adjectives for a single food gotta mean it must be pretty darn good.
How to make the fluffy cinnamon rolls
While cinnamon rolls are a pretty simple, no-fail recipe they do take time to make. So plan accordingly. What makes the cinnamon rolls extra soft and fluffy is allowing them time to rise. Let's talk about the dough!
cinnamon roll dough
First you start out by making the dough and letting it rise for 2-3 hours. When it is finished rising, turn it out onto a floured surface and roll into a rectangle.
Tips for the perfect dough:
- Use luke warm water to help yeast grow, but dont use hot water or you will kill the yeast.
- Let the yeast sit and bubble for about 10 minutes, to make sure it's alive and working.
- Incorporate the first 4 cups of flour but then add the next 1-2 cups slowly until the dough pulls away from the sides, but still has a slightly sticky texture.
- Let the dough knead in your stand mixture till it has a nice sheen to it. about 5 minutes.
When it is finished rising, turn it out onto a floured surface and roll into a rectangle.Pour melted butter on, and sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mixture evenly on the surface.
When it is finished rising, turn it out onto a floured surface and roll into a rectangle, keeping it about a half inch thick.
Roll up and cut with floss about 1.5 inches wide. Let the rolls rise on a greased jelly roll pan for another 20 minutes, until they double in size. The BAKE!
Cover with oodles of cream cheese frosting and eat it up while it warm! Lets talk about the frosting.
How to make cinnamon roll frosting
You can choose to make either cream cheese frosting (highly recommended) or more of a glaze. To make the glaze, just omit the cream cheese from our frosting recipe.
TIPS for the cinnamon roll icing-
- Make sure the butter and cream cheese are both room temperature, so you have a nice smooth textured icing.
- Frost the cinnamon rolls while they are still warm.
- Use a hand held beater or electric stand mixer.
We love to eat them immediately!! While they are nice and warm dripping with all the cream cheese frosting. These beautiful fluffy cinnamon rolls will be devoured so fast!
DID YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE? DO YOU HAVE QUESTIONS?
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Mama’s Homemade Cinnamon Rolls
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 grow from 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
- Ssprinkle cinnamon sugar over evenly 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
Tips for the perfect dough:
- Use luke warm water to help yeast grow, but dont use hot water or you will kill the yeast.
- Let the yeast sit and bubble for about 10 minutes, to make sure it's alive and working.
- Incorporate the first 4 cups of flour but then add the next 1-2 cups slowly until the dough pulls away from the sides, but still has a slightly sticky texture. If the dough is still too sticky add more flour. If you are in a more humid climate you may need to add more than what the recipe calls for.
- Let the dough knead in your stand mixture till it has a nice sheen to it. about 5 minutes.
TIPS for the cinnamon roll icing-
- Make sure the butter and cream cheese are both room temperature, so you have a nice smooth textured icing.
- Frost the cinnamon rolls while they are still warm.
- Use a hand held beater or electric stand mixer.
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!