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Cast Iron Cinnamon Rolls. Brought to you by my never-ending Christmas-food-mood and my love for cast iron pans! ?
Honestly you don’t need to make these in a cast iron pan (any baking dish or cake pan will do just fine) but there’s just something about baking in cast iron that makes me feel like some kind of modern-prairie-domestic-wonder-woman.
These aren’t just any old cinnamon rolls either – these are some Grant Just Finished Student Teaching Celebration Cinnamon Rolls and they are stuffed with love and excitement and pride because student teaching has not been the easiest but he made it through! I am soooo proud of him!
He’s not one to take pride in accomplishments or brag but that’s fine because I have no problem doing it for him ??. Student teaching, check. Up next: Graduation!
Shall we talk about these cinnamon rolls now? I think we shall. These beautiful, golden, puffy, cinnamony, buttery, easy, spirals of goodness.
Cinnamon Rolls? Easy? Yes. I was even surprised by how easy these turned out to be. I used this hot roll mix
So what makes these easy?
There’s not much kneading involved, the rise time is only 35 minutes total, and you don’t need many ingredients to make them. Here’s a 1-minute, super-helpful video that explains the proper way to cut cinnamon rolls, to avoid squishing them. Watch it if you’ve never cut cinnamon rolls with string before!
Prepare to dazzle your family/friends/guests this Christmastime with some fluffy, gooey, magic cinnamon rolls ✨
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Cast Iron Cinnamon Rolls
Ingredients
- FOR THE ROLLS:
- 1 box of Pillsbury Hot Roll mix, see note below
- 3 TBS granulated sugar
- 1 cup hot water
- 2 TBS butter
- 1 egg
- FOR THE FILLING:
- 6 TBS butter
- 1 TBS flour
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- Pinch of ground cloves
- Pinch of salt
- 2 TBS milk
- FOR THE FROSTING:
- 4 ounces cream cheese
- 4 TBS butter
- About 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
Instructions
- Grease a 9 or 10 inch cast iron skillet or cake pan and preheat oven to 375 degrees. Set pan aside.
- Combine the flour mixture packet and the yeast packet (both found in the hot roll mix box) with sugar in a mixing bowl. Add the water, butter, and egg. Stir until dough comes together and ingredients are mixed in.
- Lightly flour your countertop/surface of choice and knead the dough for a few minutes, or until it's smooth.
- Cover with a clean kitchen towel and let rest for 5 minutes.
- While that's resting, make the filling. Combine the brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and salt in a bowl and mix until combined. Set aside.
- Roll out the rested dough to a 11 x 16 inch rectangle (it doesn't have to be exact).
- Microwave the 6 TBS of butter until softened - not melted. Spread this over the rolled out dough. Sprinkle the brown sugar/spice mixture evenly over the spread butter.
- Starting with the longer side of the rectangle, begin to roll the dough, slowly, keeping a tight roll all the way through. Pinch the opposite edge to the dough when you finish rolling to seal. Using a string, cut the cinnamon rolls into about 7 even slices.
- Place each cinnamon roll in prepared pan. Cover the pan loosely with plastic wrap and let it rise next to the preheated oven for 30 minutes. The dough should double in size. Make the frosting during this time. (See below for instructions)
- After 30 minutes, uncover the dough and brush the cinnamon rolls with the 2 TBS of milk. Bake about 22 minutes, or until golden brown. At that point, take a piece of foil and lay it over the tops of the rolls if they already seem pretty brown, to prevent burning. Bake for 3-4 more minutes.
- To make the frosting, soften the cream cheese and butter in the microwave for about 30 seconds. Mix with electric mixer until smooth. Add the powdered sugar and vanilla and mix until combined. When the rolls have cooled for a few minutes, frost them! If you frost them right away the frosting will become too runny.
Note: If you can’t find the exact boxed mix that I used, I can’t guarantee that another boxed bread mix would work. It probably would work but I have only tested this recipe with this specific mix. If you absolutely can’t get your hands on it, any pre-made dough should work – just skip numbers 2,3, and 4 in the directions.
I used this cast iron skillet
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This is exactly what I need this month! May even make it Christmas morning. Thanks for the share!
Glad to hear it! 🙂
Cinnamon buns are a Christmas morning breakfast tradition in our family. I was looking for a new recipe and can’t wait to try this one
Thank you!! 🙂
These look really tasty. I’m in the UK and I think that cinnamon rolls need to get more popular here!
Haha, maybe you can make these and start a new trend 🙂
Oh don’t those look good. They would make the perfect brunch recipe when friends come over for the holidays.
Absolutely! 🙂
I just got a new cast iron pan and I’ve been wanting to bake something in it! Next time I’m at the store I will have to look through the baking mixes and try to find one I can use for this.
Glad to hear it! 🙂
I have been promising myself for years now that I would try to make cast iron cinnamon rolls. I really should do that some time soon because yours are really making me drool right now.
Haha, glad to hear I made you drool! They are quite delicious 🙂
My cast iron is my bff! These look so yummy!
Thank you!
I love using my cast iron skillet. These tasty rolls would be perfect for the weekend holiday brunches this season.
I love my cast iron too! ?
Now this is my kind of recipe, (easy) I don’t know if we have this kind of off the shelf roll product in the UK but I’m going to have a good look as I have never made cinnamon rolls and as a half Scandi I feel like I’ve been missing out all this time:-)
I bet you could use a different box mix or use a premade dough 🙂 you could even make dough from scratch if you are feeling ambitious ?
I also love my cast iron pans and love to bake in them. I swear everything tastes better.
It does!!