Easy Cream Cheese Cinnamon Roll Recipe
Make this Cream Cheese Cinnamon Roll Recipe for a surprise treat your family will love! Cinnamon sugar in soft rolls topped with homemade cream cheese icing! To save time so you can eat this scrumptious treat even quicker we've cut out some of the waiting time and went the quick rise bread route, so you only have one "rise" to wait on.
You still get a fluffy cinnamon roll, it does not take away from the deliciousness of this cream cheese cinnamon roll recipe! This recipe is so yummy and even with just the three of us here at home, a batch of this delicious cream cheese cinnamon roll recipe does not last more than a couple of days!
After I got this down I also created a Maple Cinnamon Roll that is just a few minor adjustments to this recipe. I'll be sharing that recipe very soon!
One rise, two rises or three rises?
I have to admit, I didn't get this cream cheese cinnamon roll recipe the way I wanted on the first try. In fact, my first attempt was a total failure. However, like all failures, we learn from them, the 2nd batch was oh so good but it had two rises we had to wait on. I don't know about you but I'm not really a patient person so I went on to explore if we could cut down on the wait time.
Success at last!
Success happened on the fourth try once I had a better idea of what I was doing as this was really my first experience with cinnamon rolls, let along bread-like recipes. While batches #2 & #3 were fluffy rolls and on so tasty they just took longer. Mind you my family didn't mind my experimenting as they got to eat some darn tasty cream cheese cinnamon rolls. I just wanted to cut down on some of that wait time, remember I'm impatient. It was a success, just look at the rolls above and even the photo before that you can see they already rose quite a bit even before we baked them. When I originally put the cut-up dough in that pan, they weren't even touching each other. That gives you an idea of how much they expanded. By this fourth batch, we had the rolling and cutting down pat. Kudos to my hubby who I made my dough roller and cutter, he did a great job.
AHmazing Cream Cheese Icing!
I know a lot of cinnamon roll recipes and thus their photos show a semi-transparent glaze on the rolls or other ones you can see more of the rolls underneath the glaze, not ours because this my friends is a cream cheese frosting. It's thicker, opaque and damn delicious and I slather a good amount on these babies. Think like the oh so tasty ones you used to get a Cinnabon with all that cream cheese frosting!I even had a friend who was drooling over the photos I posted asked if we gave extra frosting like Cinnabon. Um yes, I had leftovers so you could dip these cream cheese cinnamon rolls into more cream cheese frosting if you wanted to lol. So while my "icing" of these rolls is not pretty (is there a pretty way to do it?) it doesn't matter because you'll be inhaling them so quickly it won't matter. It's all about the taste for us.
Okay enough bragging from me shall we get to the recipe now?
Homemade Cream Cheese Cinnamon Roll Recipe
Make this Cream Cheese Cinnamon Roll Recipe for a surprise treat your family will love! Cinnamon sugar in soft rolls topped with homemade cream cheese icing! To save time so you can eat this scrumptious treat even quicker we've cut out some of the waiting time and went the quick rise bread route, so you only have one "rise" to wait on
Ingredients
Rolls
- 3 ¼ cups flour (up to 3 ½ cups if your dough is too wet)
- ¼ cup white sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 tsp instant yeast
- 1 egg
- 1 cup milk
- ¼ cup butter softened
Filling
- ¾ cup loosely packed brown sugar
- 3 tablespoons ground cinnamon
- 5 tablespoons butter room temperature
Icing
- ¼ cup unsalted butter softened
- 4 oz cream cheese softened
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
- 2 cups icing sugar
Instructions
- Heat oven to 200°F (100°C) or as low as it will allow you to preheat it. TURN IT OFF AS SOON AS IT'S HEATED UP (Should be off for 10 minutes BEFORE putting in the pan per step# 9)
- In a small microwavable bowl, heat the milk, and butter together in the microwave until the butter is melted (about 30-45 seconds). DO NOT OVERHEAT
- In a large mixing bowl mix 2 ¼ cups of flour, yeast, sugar, and salt. Put the bowl on a stand mixer with the dough hook. Add the egg and slowly add the milk & butter mix & the remaining 1 cup of flour until the dough starts to form and become smooth. (If kneading by hand do so until all the ingredients are smooth)
- Let the dough rest for 10 minutes.
- Roll out dough onto a lightly floured surface, into a 19-inch x 13–inch rectangle. Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon together in a small bowl.
- Brush the softened butter over the dough and sprinkle evenly with brown sugar and cinnamon mix. Gently rub the cinnamon mixture into the butter.
- On one of the long sides, roll up dough tightly; then gently pinch the seam down to seal.
- Cut dough into slices. We do about 1 inch to get anywhere from 10-12 slices.
- Place in a greased 9x13 inch pan and cover with a damp cloth and place in the preheated oven that should now be turned off. (Let rise for 30 minutes or until you’ve seen the rolls have raised almost double in size). If your house is quite warm you can let the rolls rise at room temperature but we’ve had great success with using the oven method. If you have a proofing setting for your oven you can use that instead.
- Remove the rolls from the oven and preheat it to 175°C | 350°F.
- Uncover rolls; bake for 25 minutes, or until lightly golden. Cool before adding cream cheese icing.
- Prepare icing while rolls are baking. Beat together the cream cheese, butter and vanilla, until smooth and creamy.
- Beat in the powdered sugar until lump free. Spread icing over rolls.
Enjoy!
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
12Serving Size:
1 cinnamon rollAmount Per Serving: Calories: 421Total Fat: 17gSaturated Fat: 10gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 5gCholesterol: 60mgSodium: 228mgCarbohydrates: 63gFiber: 2gSugar: 35gProtein: 6g
Please note that we can not guarantee the accuracy of the nutritional information. They are a best guess calculation.
It's easier than you think.
It may look like a lot of steps but once you've done it once you'll find it's even easier than you think. I love that these cream cheese cinnamon rolls only have one rise. I've made the cinnamon rolls with 3 rises and to be honest I don't notice any difference. This one saves time and they are just as fluffy as ones with 2 or more rises in the recipe.
Make sure to PIN this recipe it will be a family favourite!
Room temperature butter or melted butter?
I also prefer to use softened butter over melted butter for the cinnamon brown sugar filling. I find that melted butter filling tends to leak out a bit during the baking process. You'll love saving time too and even more, you'll love how tasty these cream cheese cinnamon rolls are. I warn you, they will not last long!Of course, the cream cheese icing is literally the icing on the well cinnamon roll. It makes this a decadent treat and hey if you have some leftover icing which I usually do you can be indulgent and dip your cinnamon roll in more icing.
If you try this recipe let us know how you liked it (or not). Don't forget to come back as we will be sharing our Maple Cinnamon Rolls very soon, it's just a couple of minor changes to this recipe to make them!
You may also love these tasty treats from our recipes section:
Lemon Loaf Recipe With Homemade Glaze
Semi-Homemade Chocolate Coconut Poke Cake
Those look amazing and I can just imagine how great they smell while they are baking!
They look so amazing!
These look amazingly delicious!!
Who could resist these Cream Cheese Cinnamon Rolls? I have put on weight since being home so much with the virus but regardless I have to make this recipe ASAP! LOL
These look & sound delicious! I usually don't make glaze/icing for my cinnamon rolls but the cream cheese icing has me re-thinking that. 😉 Saving this one!
Lord have mercy.
Those 20 pounds I just lost is back on me after reading this post.. I'm a sucker for anything cinnamon!!
These cinnamon buns look to-die-for! My taste buds are begging me to make some.
These look amazing and I can tell that it's a good amount of cinnamon, which I think is essential!
I love this type of snack, count me in. Yum.
These cinnamon rolls look fabulous! I'm going to try to make them once the heat wave is over.
That Icing looks amazing!!
Not going to lie, it's so good, imo opinion it makes the cinnamon roll. Hubby though loves it even without the icing, especially fresh out of the oven lol
Yum! What a good recipe!!
Great! Sounds easy enough!
OMGosh!! These look delish! I think I'm gonna have to make these for next Sundays breakfast!! Yummy!!
I’m baking more like many folks due to this lockdown from the Coronavirus. I never made my own cinnamon rolls before today. I bought the ones by Pillsbury in the refrigerator section. Your recipe looks easy to follow so I’m planning to surprise my family with these Cream Cheese Cinnamon Rolls. Thanks for sharing!
The maple flavor is a great idea. My wife makes cinnamon rolls on holidays like New Years Day morning. She does a plain cream cheese icing. I’ll let know about this maple flavor recipe too.
I love cheese cake looking good and tasty
I learned I can make my own cinnamon rolls at home. They look yummy and will be a real cost saver too.
These look AMAZING! Thanks for the recipe. I am going to give this a try!
Let us know how it works out for you 🙂
I def will!! These would be so good for a breakfast 🙂