Quarantine has me on a baking frenzy! I’ve always LOVED LOVED LOVED Cinnabon’s cinnamon rolls. I especially love the ooey gooey centers. One of my fondest childhood memories is when my parents would take us to the mall and then we’d all buy one cinnamon roll and split it. At 4-5+ dollars per roll, it was a treat for our family. We would slice the cinnamon roll like a cake and then everyone would have a bit of each layer. Later on when we got older, we’d all still split a cinnamon roll but eat it ‘unraveling’ it style. Lucky ones get the center! You can probably guess how fast we inhaled these…
Anyways, now you can make ooey gooey yummy delicious cinnamon rolls at home! It’s much more affordable than going out for them, and since it’s coming straight from your oven, you can bet the ooey gooey deliciousness if even more ooey gooey delicious!
Ingredients for the dough:
(Dry) 768 grams of bread flour (~ 6 cups)
(Dry) 18 grams coarse sea salt (~ 1 tbs)
(Dry) 1/4 cup sugar (1/3 if you like it sweet)
(Dry) 7 grams instant yeast (1 little packet)
(Wet) 2 eggs
(Wet) 1/2 cup whole milk
(Wet) 2 cups warm water
(Wet) 6 tablespoons melted butter
Steps for dough:
Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl. In a separate bowl whisk together the wet ingredients. Combine the two. Cover with a towel and let rise for ~2 hours or doubled.
Ingredients for the filling:
1. 1 and 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
2. 1/3 cup cinnamon
3. 12 tablespoon butter melted
4. Pinch of salt
5. Optional: 2 tablespoons bootstrap molasses
Steps for filling:
Melt your butter and combine with the rest of the ingredients. If you like things sweet, you can use 2 cups of light brown sugar. You can also use brown sugar or dark brown sugar in place of light brown sugar, just omit the molasses.
Ingredients for frosting
1. 8 oz package of cream cheese
2. 1 and 1/3 cup of powdered sugar (2 cups if you like it sweet)
3. 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4. Heavy whipping cream to thin out the frosting
Steps for frosting:
In a large bowl, microwave your cream cheese so its soft and easy to work with. I used room temperature cream cheese diced up, and I put it in the microwave for about 15 seconds. Combine the sugar and vanilla extract and mix well. If you prefer your frosting to be thinner, add 1 tablespoon of cream and incorporate. Continue adding splashes of cream and mix well until you have it at your desired consistency.
This frosting recipe is enough to really liberally frost half your cinnamon rolls and scantily frost all of your cinnamon rolls. Since our family doesn’t like things too sweet, it was enough for our family to frost the whole batch of cinnamon rolls. If your family enjoys frosting, double this recipe for frosting.
Remaining Steps:
1. When your dough has proofed to be twice the size, flour your hands and your working surface generously to plop out your dough and finesse it out to 2 equally sized balls. Continue flouring generously as you go so the dough doesn’t stick. Roll/stretch out one ball into a 10 by 15 inch rectangle (ish).
2. Spread half of your filling mixture evenly to cover your rolled out dough. Now roll the dough hot dog style and cut into 9 equal(ish) pieces. Place into a buttered pan or glass pyrex (9×9 would give you pretty more symmetrical buns but work with what you got). Repeat with second ball of dough.
3. Let it proof for 40-45 minutes in room temperature if you plan on eating it the same day OR store it covered in your fridge to bake the next morning.
**If you plan on baking it the next morning, frosting can definitely be made then as well.
4. Bake at 375 until golden (around 20-25 minutes) and let cool before frosting.
