I can’t think of many things that make your house smell as amazing as homemade cinnamon rolls. This Copy Cat CinnaBon Recipe is no exception! The house will smell heavenly when you bake these!
These are just beautiful rolls that melt in your mouth and warm you from the inside out!
While homemade rolls take a little time, they are worth every single second. Don’t skimp out on the frosting because… it is amazing! Seriously… it’s the best!
These taste exactly like the cinnamon rolls I love to get at the mall! I’ve made them so many times and they turn out soft and perfectly every time!
Mmmm…. perfect for breakfast or dessert… or snack. Ok, makes a good brunch too, and I’m not saying I’ve never eaten them for dinner… but I’m not saying I have either.
Items you’ll need for this recipe:
* Active Dry Yeast * Cinnamon * Vanilla Extract *
Ingredients
- 1 cup milk
- 2 eggs room temperature
- ⅓ cup butter room temperature
- 4 to 4 ¼ cups bread flour (plus extra for rolling)
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 0.25 ounce active dry yeast 1 packet, about 2 ¼ teaspoons
Filling
- 1 cup brown sugar packed
- 3 tablespoons cinnamon
- ⅓ cup butter softened
Frosting
- 4 ounces cream cheese softened
- ¼ cup butter softened
- 1 ½ cups powdered sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ⅛ teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Combine 2 cups of the flour and yeast in a large mixing bowl. In a saucepan, combine milk, butter, sugar, and salt over medium heat until temperature reaches 120 to 130°F (butter will be almost melted). Add milk mixture to flour mixture along with eggs and mix with an electric mixer on low for 30 seconds. Stir in as much of the flour as you can. (see note below for bread machine)
- Place dough a floured surface and knead in as much of the remaining flour as possible. Continue to knead the dough until it is very smooth and elastic (this will take about 5-10 minutes). Cover dough with oil or cooking spray and plastic wrap. Let rest covered for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon and set aside.
- Roll the dough into a 18x21-inch rectangle. Spread ⅓ cup butter on the dough and top with the brown sugar and cinnamon mixture.
- Starting with the long side, roll up dough so you have an 21" log. Cut into 12 even rolls. Grease a 9x13 pan and place the rolls in the pan. Cover with plastic wrap and a tea towel or kitchen towel and let rise until nearly doubled, about 45 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 400°F.
- Bake rolls on the center rack about 15 minutes or until lightly browned.
- While the rolls are baking, combine cream cheese, ¼ cup butter, confectioners' sugar, vanilla extract and salt with a mixer until fluffy.
- Allow rolls to cool for about 10-15 minutes and spread frosting on warms rolls.
Notes
Nutrition Information
Nutrition information provided is an estimate and will vary based on cooking methods and brands of ingredients used.
Course Dessert
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Here are some more recipes you’ll love
* Apple Pie Cinnamon Rolls * Apple Pie Roll Ups * Apple Pie Tacos *
This recipe was slightly adapted from Allrecipes.com
It does not do a rise before shaping rolls. Is there only one rise and what happens if you do two?
If it did not rise before shaping then likely your yeast is not active. There is a second rise in step 4 once the rolls have been shaped, but if the first rise did not work I suspect the second will not either.
Quick question about the bread flour. I live in a small Mexican town (San Miguel de Allende, GTO,MX) and I’ve checked everywhere for bread flour, and there is none to be found. We have great bakeries in my area, so the Mexicans just don’t bake much, hence the lack of bread flour in the supermarkets.
I know bread flour is “harder” than all-purpose flour. Can I replace some of the AP flour with 00 semolina flour? Is that a “thing” in baking?
Looking forward to making this recipe! Many thanks for this and all your other recipes. When I’m using one of your recipes, I never fret that it “won’t work out right”, because it always does!
I would not replace with semolina, using all all-purpose flour will work just fine Carol!
Guessing I did something wrong. These wouldn’t rise so maybe the milk mixture was too hot.
I love this recipe. I use it to make star bread. I make the dough in my bread maker, I do heat the milk and butter. it comes out perfect every time!
the dough makes a nice puffy star bread.
Very yum! I made these today. I did increase the brown sugar mixture because I combined the butter by mistake but they became even more like Cinnabon ones. Also I put double cream (heavy cream )on the rolls before their second proving which I saw other recipes do. So delicious!
I did heat up my milk, butter and sugar but I put them all in my bread maker which worked out great.
This recipe is outdated.
It’s based on old baking logic from decades ago, when yeast was weaker and kitchens were colder. In 2025, the step telling you to heat milk (and effectively melt the butter) is unnecessary and actively harmful. It dramatically increases the risk of killing yeast, curdling eggs, and breaking gluten formation.
If you’re not over 40 years old and didn’t learn baking before modern ingredients and equipment, you will most likely fail using this recipe exactly as written. The heating step is ridiculous by today’s standards and causes more ruined dough than it prevents. Cold or barely warm milk works perfectly with modern yeast, makes the dough more forgiving, and avoids all of these issues.
If you are a young person trying to do this recipe and fail multiple times like I did, don’t blame yourself. The failure isn’t the baker — it’s the recipe.
Do NOT heat the milk butter sugar salt mixture. If you do and you overshoot it by even 5 degrees farenheit it’ll ruin your entire batch. Just add it cold and it’ll be fine as long as you’re not in 1980.
I’m sorry to hear this recipe didn’t work for you Kaoru. I have worked with yeast a lot and it is always recommended to warm liquids to 110°F if adding yeast directly to liquids or warm liquids to 120°F to 130°F if adding the yeast to the flour mixture which will then be added to the liquids. This is directly off the yeast packaging. If you do not use warm ingredients the yeast will not activate. I have also never had the problem of eggs curdling while making a yeast dough recipe.
If this recipe did not work for you, likely your yeast is expired or you did overheat it (I recommend using an instant read thermometer for best results!). To check if your yeast is expired I would try proofing a little bit by adding some to warm water/milk (110°F) with a sprinkle of sugar and letting it sit for 5 minutes and see if it foams.
I hope this helps!
I honestly thought heating up the sugar, milk and butter in a saucepan was odd myself.. I went ahead and made it anyway. This is the 3rd recipe I’ve tried and it is the best one yet!
Thank you for your very polite response. I’ve been baking breads for nearly 30 years and I watched my Grandmother bake breads all my life. I always warm my milk or liquids slightly if I am using Active Dry Yeast. I even warm liquids when using Instant Yeast, although it isn’t necessary to do so. I only warm enough to take the chill off the milk. Yeast will bloom nicely and it doesn’t have to be warm. It gives the yeast a head start and that’s all it needs. Just ask any experienced baker. I don’t even bother to melt the butter all the way. I will usually just give it a quick spin in the microwave until it begins to melt, add that to the barely warmed milk and there you go. Done, simple and easy.
Is there a way for me to prep these in advance or if I bake them the day before, is there a “better” way to reheat them so they taste fresh? I’ve made this recipe before and they are DELICIOUS, but I was requested to bring these for Easter and I’m not sure how to prep it in advance. Thank you so much!
These can be prepped the day before and stored in the fridge overnight before baking. Take them out and let them sit on the counter for 30 minutes, then follow the recipe to bake. They might need a couple extra minutes in the oven. If baking and just reheating I would wait to add the icing until after they have been reheated so it doesn’t melt and run off.
This recipe calls for active dry yeast, which requires blooming the yeast in warm liquid, as specified in the recipe. The “new generation”, stronger yeast that you’re talking about is called instant yeast, or bread machine yeast, and it’s been around for quite awhile…for at least as long as bread machines have existed. My bread machine is 35 years old and still works with that fancy new yeast you mentioned.
Holly was very kind to answer your disrespectful, ignorant comment with a patient explanation. You owe her and every baker over 40 an apology.
Kaori you are wrong!!!
you nailed this one one the head. I ruined my whole batch.
You didn’t elaborate how you ruined it. Most likely lack of bread baking experience.