EASY Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

Back in my innkeeping days, we made the BEST homemade cinnamon rolls. From scratch. It’s an easy cinnamon roll recipe, just takes a little extra time. But once you make them from scratch, you’ll never want the pre-made stuff at the store again.

This recipe is originally from my innkeeping blog, Inn The Kitchen. You can hit the button above to skip right down to the recipe. Or scroll through the step-by-step photos and get a peek into some of the old pics of my former life as an innkeeper. Either way, I’m sure you’ll enjoy these homemade cinnamon rolls!

Store-Bought vs Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

Flour. Butter. Eggs. Milk. Sugar. These simple ingredients offer so many baking possibilities! It never ceases to amaze me how many different things can be baked from just tweaking a combination of them.

For this morning, I’m going to make a traditional chilly-morning-gooey-cozy-comfort-food favorite – homemade cinnamon rolls. I confess, I usually make these by popping open a cylinder can with a certain giggly dough boy gracing the label. The orange icing was my favorite. Artificial … yes, I know. But quick and easy.

This recipe is not a quick one. But it is easy. And they taste soooo much better with the added ingredients of time and love. There are a lot of different variations of recipes for cinnamon rolls, but this one in particular comes from our friend Dee over at Anchor Inn on the Lake in Branson.

HOMEMADE CINNAMON ROLLS – INGREDIENTS

Here’s a quick checklist of ingredients you’ll need to have on hand to bake cinnamon rolls from scratch. They’re all pretty much pantry and refrigerator staples, except for maybe the yeast.

• flour
• sugar
• milk
• butter
• eggs
• cinnamon
• brown sugar
• yeast

TIPS FOR MAKING HOMEMADE CINNAMON ROLLS

Before you get started, here are a few prep tips for getting stellar results. I find that measuring out all the ingredients first helps speed up the preparation and makes clean up easy too.

First, set out your ingredients 30 minutes to an hour before baking so that your dairy items (milk, egg, butter) are close to room temperature. Having your dairy ingredients at room temperature helps them blend together more smoothly and trap a bit of air, which leads to a fluffier baking result. Here are some tips to help save you time:

• Bring the egg to room temperature. This is a general tip for baking as having eggs at room temperature will allow the yolks to blend in with the dough more evenly and result in a fluffier texture once the cinnamon rolls are baked. If you remember, just set an egg out when you get up to make your coffee in the morning so it will have had an hour or so to warm up to room temperature. But if you forget to set out an egg, and want to save some time, just place it in a bowl of warm tap water while you’re measuring out the other ingredients.
• Warm up the milk in a sauce pan and add the butter to it to melt. By warming up the milk and butter together in a sauce pan, they’ll blend together a bit more smoothly. Plus, the warmer temperature will activate the yeast. There’s pics of this in the step-by-step cinnamon roll recipe photos below.
• Use a casserole dish for taller homemade cinnamon rolls. Baking your cinnamon rolls in a casserole dish or cake pan will force them to keep their shape and rise taller when baking, as opposed to spreading out like a pinwheel on a sheet pan. Either pan will work great, it just depends on what end result you want.
• Adjust the temperature if you’re using a glass vs metal baking dish. Reduce baking temperature by 25 degrees and check the cinnamon rolls up to ten minutes earlier if you are substituting a glass dish for a metal cake pan. This is because glass doesn’t heat up as quickly as metal, but will become very hot once heated up.

HOMEMADE CINNAMON ROLLS RECIPE – STEP-BY-STEP PHOTOS

Add the yeast to a mixing bowl with just a little bit of water, about a 1/2 cup. As the yeast dissolves into the water, you may need to mix it up just a bit to make sure there are no big clumps.

Warm up the milk and melt the butter into it. Just don’t boil it. This is on low to medium heat.

Break the egg into a separate bowl and beat with a whisk. This helps with mixing it in, but it’s also so you don’t ruin your whole recipe in case the egg is bad. Luckily, I’ve never encountered a bad egg. Add the eggs to the milk/butter mixture and mix.

Then add the milk/butter/egg mixture to the yeast absorbed in water and mix.

Then, add the flour and white sugar to the wet mixture and lightly mix with a spoon. Don’t over mix it, just make sure that all the flour/sugar is wet with the combined ingredients. 

Cover with a towel and put it in a warm place (I place it on top of my heating oven) to let the dough rise for an hour.

LETTING THE DOUGH RISE

In the recipe, Dee suggests turning the dough out onto a floured surface and kneading for 5 minutes, THEN setting it aside to rise. I followed this instruction making my first batch of cinnamon rolls, and the dough never rose. Perhaps my yeast packet was old. But if you’re dairy ingredients are warm, and your yeast packet is new, then the rise is spectacular!

ROLLING THE DOUGH

Put the dough out onto a floured surface. Also flour your hands up pretty good, then work dough into a ball and then roll it into a rectangular shape. It doesn’t have to be perfect since you’ll be rolling it up with cinnamon. 

Spread on room-temperature butter and sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon.

Roll into a tight roll and pinch the edge together at the end. Some cinnamon sugar gooeyness might ooze out. That’s perfectly okay.

Then slice into 1 inch think rolls and place onto a greased/floured cookie sheet or baking dish.

This is a pic of my very first batch of homemade cinnamon rolls over a decade ago back when I was an innkeeper. Even though we’ve updated the blog and the recipe, I had to keep this photo for memories sake. At least you know this homemade cinnamon roll recipe is tried and true!

Carefully place your uncooked, sliced homemade cinnamon rolls into a cake pan or casserole dish. You may have to adjust the bake time depending on whether you’re using a glass or metal dish. Reduce baking temperature by 25 degrees and check the cinnamon rolls up to ten minutes earlier if you are substituting a glass dish for a metal cake pan. This is because glass doesn’t heat up as quickly as metal, but will become very hot once heated up.

Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes until the cinnamon rolls have risen and the top crust is golden brown. Allow them to cool for 5-10 minutes before removing from the pan.

These cinnamon rolls taste great on their own. I love to pull them apart and enjoy with a cup of hot coffee. But you could had a glaze or frosting too! Try adding this orange glaze recipe from The Old Hen Bed & Breakfast. 

 

MORE BREAKFAST RECIPES YOU’LL ENJOY

• Homemade Pancakes From Scratch
• Barley Pancakes With Blueberry Sauce
• Homemade Pancake Syrup
• Stuffed French Toast
• Baked Cinnamon French Toast
• EASY and Delicious Microwave Oatmeal
• Air Fryer French Toast
• Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

 

Originally Published Dec 21, 2009. Updated 2021.