Per the requests I got after my last cinnamon roll post, here is the recipe for my tried-and-true vanilla pudding cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting. The vanilla pudding is simply added to the dough to make it extremely soft and pliable – and oh, does it ever. (No surprise, this recipe comes direct from my Aunt Marilyn whose recipes have made a great showing on this blog already.) I made these last week and it confirmed my feelings: I am in love with these cinnamon rolls. The dough is so extremely tender and soft, it will blow your mind, and the cream cheese goodness of the frosting is beyond delicious. The filling is made up of brown sugar and cinnamon and it gives a great richness to the standard cinnamon and white sugar combo. Oh my, these really are so good. I’m glad several of you requested the recipe because it gave me a chance to make them and reaffirm my vow to continue making them – it also gave me a great excuse to eat about 13 of them.
Note: to use instant yeast instead of active dry yeast, decrease the yeast amount to 1 1/2 tablespoons instant yeast. Still mix it with the water and sugar but you don’t need to wait for it to proof – just continue with the recipe, adding in the yeast/water mixture where indicated. Also, as with all yeast doughs, I never use the flour amount called for in the recipe as a hard fast rule (unless a weight measure is given and then I pull out my kitchen scale). Because humidity, temperature, altitude and a multitude of other factors can impact how much flour you need in your yeast doughs, I always judge when to quit adding flour by the texture and look and feel of the dough rather than how much flour I’ve added compared to the recipe. This tutorial on yeast may help identify how a perfectly floured dough should be.
Ingredients
- ½ cup warm water
- 2 tablespoons active dry yeast
- 2 tablespoons sugar
- 3 ½ ounce package instant vanilla pudding
- ½ cup butter, melted
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 6+ cups flour
- 1 cup butter, softened to room temperature
- 2 cups brown sugar
- 4 teaspoons cinnamon
- 8 ounces cream cheese
- ½ cup butter, softened to room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3 cups confectioner’s sugar
- 2-3 tablespoons milk
Directions
- In a small bowl combine water, yeast and sugar. Stir until dissolved. Set aside. In large bowl, take pudding mix and prepare according to package directions. Add butter, eggs and salt. Mix well. Then add yeast mixture. Blend. Gradually add flour; knead until smooth. Do not overflour the dough! It should be very soft but not sticky. Place in a greased bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled. Then roll out on floured board to 34 X 21 inches in size. Take 1 cup soft butter and spread over surface. In bowl, mix 2 cups brown sugar and 4 teaspoons cinnamon. Sprinkle over the top. Roll up very tightly. With knife put a notch every 1 1/2 inches. Cut with thread or serrated knife. Place on lightly greased cookie sheet 1 inch apart. Cover and let rise until double again.
- Bake at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Remove when they start to turn golden (don’t overbake). Frost warm rolls with cream cheese frosting (combine butter and cream cheese and mix well, then add vanilla and sugar and mix again, then add milk for desired consistency). Makes about 24 very large rolls.
Notes
Freezable Recipe: After shaping the rolls and placing them on the baking sheet, cover with lightly greased saran wrap and a layer of tin foil. Store in the freezer. The night before you want to serve them take out the rolls and put them in the refrigerator. Let them thaw in the refrigerator. Take them out about 8-9 hours after being in the refrigerator and let them rise until doubled. Bake according to the recipe. (If you have less time, you can take the rolls out of the freezer and let them come to room temperature on the counter – about 4 hours, then let rise until doubled).
Whoa, this makes A LOT of cinnamon rolls! I went ahead baked the one pan for our family and froze the rest. I froze them on the sheet pan but then wrapped each one in plastic wrap (probably overkill, I know) and then put them into a freezer bag. The thing I like about that is that we can pull them out individually and make 2 or so at a time if we get a craving for them rather than the whole pan. I just unwrap them, plop ‘em on a pan before bed and they’re ready to go in the morning. Thank you for the great recipe!
So I am making these for conference sunday.. do I have a tiny kitchenaid or am I doing something wrong? While trying to knead these the dough kept coming over the top of my hook. I realize this makes 24 rolls.. but am I doing something wrong.. or can I half the recipe next time… I am stressed about how well it was kneaded.
Stace – I’ve never made cinnamon rolls or anything, for that matter, in a kitchen aid, so I’m not sure how the size of your kitchen aid will work with the cinnamon rolls, although I have heard several people mention that whenever they make any yeast/bread recipe in their kitchen aid, they halve the recipe. It sounds like maybe that might be the key next time. Either that or perhaps the dough needed a bit more flour in order to not be so sticky. I hope they turned out ok!
Really? then do you just mix it all by hand flour and everything? You may have said it somewhere, but I dont remember reading it
Stace – I use my Bosch mixer when making these rolls. It has about a 12-15 cup flour capacity so I think it is quite a bit bigger than the Kitchenaid. If you halve the recipe, it might fit better in your mixer.
I made these last night and they were A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! This is now my go to recipe for cinnamon rolls! Thank you!
So I found out that just thinking about food can impact blood sugar. Tomorrow I am making these glorious rolls. Tonight all the members of my family are suffering from insulin problems. I may start at 6am. mmmmmm. LOVE THESE!!!
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Hi,I really would like to try these rolls,but I do not understand clear about the pudding,if to use a ready pudding? or to make it from powder custard with milk?or make it from vanilla jello?please help me,because it looks delicius!
I am making these before I head to church on sunday. How long do they rise (1st and 2nd time)?
Tina – you need to use the dry mix pudding where you just add milk (like the instant jello pudding brand). Hope that helps.
Lorrie – I don’t usually give an exact time because it depends a lot on the temperature of your kitchen, how warm your dough is, etc. But on average, I’d suggest about an hour to an hour and a half for each rise. Good luck!
Ok Mel … .we are trying these for X-mas morning and your Buffalo Pretzel bites, 7 layer dip and amazing chocolate cake for X-mas eve. .. .a tad ambitious I am afraid. ..but can’t resist as everything we try of yours comes out fab! Wish I had the confidence to try your fab frosting recipe as well. .! Thanks for the great ideas!! Fingers crossed we don’t mess it all up royally!! Ha ha!
Hi Mel! Congratulations on the fifth new one!! If it is a boy, we will be almost twins!! Speaking of five boys, they are hankering for your Pudding Cinnamon Rolls. Just one question, I want to put them together tonight and bake them in the morning. Do I let them rise after cut and then refridgerate? I am new to the yeast endeavor. I did make your french bread rolls for our early Christmas with the in-laws and they were a huge hit!! You are the bomb!!
Happy Holidays to you and yours!
Mom of Five boys from Kansas…love them boys!!
Kristin – love moms of all boys! We have to stick together. As for the cinnamon rolls, yes, they can definitely be shaped and put in the pan the night before. Don’t let them rise in the pan, once they are shaped, stick them on the pan, cover with greased plastic wrap and refrigerate. Pull them out a couple of hours before you need to bake them so they have time to double in size. Hope that helps!
I made these last night and took them to my husband’s work this morning, huge hit! Thank you! One question, do you have any tips for rolling them tight? I’m not sure if they weren’t tight enough because I refrigerated them over night and the filling leaked out a bit or I just didn’t roll then tight enough in the first place. Thanks again!
Lacy – you know, I don’t know that I have any really great tips other than just trying to get that first roll over as tight as possible – it seems like once that first roll is tight, the rest rolls up fine…although, mine don’t always look tight and neat, I have to admit.
i made these today and they turned out super awesome! it was by the weirdest recipe i have ever worked with but it was absolutely delicious. thanks so much for sharing, keep on blogging!!!!
For those about icing, I change mine up for more flavor. So I add pecans to the filing, but for the icing I use honey nut cream cheese and instead of vanilla I use about 3 tbs of maple syrup. Cannot wait to make this again!
Just made these to go with chili for the Super Bowl. They are amazing! This will be my ONLY cinnamon roll recipe from now on. Very easy and the dough is so tender!
I have been making these for a couple of years, now, and, after experimenting with several other versions (including your buttermilk ones), we keep coming back to these. Love the light, fluffy texture, and, with my LARGE family (7 kids!), the recipe makes enough for everyone to have their fill with some left over.
BUT, I have shied away from them recently, as we are trying to cut WAY down on processed foods, and the instant pudding thing… *sigh* HOWEVER, I had a thought. I subbed in your Vanilla Pudding recipe for the instant (made ahead and chilled), and guess what? They were DIVINE. *happy dance* Still the same light, fluffy texture, and lovely sweet taste, without all the unpronounceables. My family is happy. I am happy. And we are once again in cinnamon roll heaven. <3
These are delicious! However, I think that I must have done something wrong. I divided them into three batches, one of which I baked straight away on a cookie sheet. The spread out like crazy, but we all still enjoyed them immensely. The second batch I froze and thawed over night, plopped on a cookie sheet, and noticed after 2 minutes in the oven they were spreading again. I transferred them to a 8″ sq dish and they are looking great.
Emily – is there a chance you might have underfloured the dough? That may cause them to spread (if the dough is too sticky and won’t hold up to rising/baking) – otherwise, you might try rolling them up even tighter.
That could have been it. I was very conservative when using the flour as I have a bad habit of generally overflouring my baking. Next batch I will tweak the amounts, thanks so much!
I made these Cinnamon Rolls for Christmas! They were so good!! I froze them and made them as needed because this recipe makes a lot. So, So delicious!!!!
Is instant yeast the same as rapid yeast????? I do have rapid and active….Thanks
Brenda – yes, instant yeast is also called rapid rise yeast.
Is there an easy way to make these at night for breakfast the next morning?
Lyndsay – you can make the rolls, shape them and put them on the baking sheet the night before. Don’t let them rise on the baking sheet – cover them with greased plastic wrap and refrigerate them. Take them out 2 hours or so before you want to bake them so they can rise.
Making these for conference in the morning. I wake up early with the baby anyways, so I am going to try to make them tonight and put in the refrigerator over night, take them out to come to room tempurature and rise until double and then bake so they are warm and fresh from the oven for conference. I will let you know how they turn out!
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Sorry this is so late, but do you use light brown or dark brown sugar for the filling?? Thanks!!!
I think that it is hard to make good cinnamon rolls! There are definitely more bad than good out there, but these look amazing!! All elements met… moist and gooey and slathered with frosting… it just looks like it will melt in your mouth!! I can not wait to try these! Thanks for being great at what you do!
Found this recipe & had to try it – & they were delicious. First time I’ve made cinnamon rolls (though mom used to do so regularly when I was growing up).
The issue I ran into was kneading the dough. It took a long time (I’m talking 35-40 minutes) for it to come together. I followed the recipe with the 6+ cups of flour, and ended up adding probably 1/2 – 3/4 c additional flour during kneading. My first guess was that because of the pudding the dough took a bit longer, but I see that nobody else had this problem.
Any thoughts? Do I need to add a bit more flour to start? I’d love to make these again but I don’t look forward to another marathon of kneading….
Just found your entry on measuring flour, & I have been using spoon & sweep since I could reach the counter. This could account for the difficulty I experienced!
Hilary – you can use either light or dark brown sugar. I use whatever I have on hand and both work great.
Brian – I hope the measuring flour thing helps out with the stickiness of the dough! It sounds like you need to add a bit more flour to begin with. Hope that helps!
Hi Melanie! I am very excited to taste these. I am in the middle of making them but wonder if I am doing something wrong. I make bread all the time but mostly do the kneading in my Kitchen Aid, especially for soft, wet doughs. I tried to do this the same but it never cleared the sides, was always sticky even after adding about another 3/4 cup flour. I then tried to knead them by hand with about another 1/4 cup flour and that was much worse and messier. I finally managed to get it in a ball and put it in a bowl to raise. How much “6+” flour do you end up using. Do you knead them by hand? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Hi Shane – this dough is definitely on the softer side of the dough spectrum but it shouldn’t be overly sticky. It should end up being very soft and supple without leaving a lot of dough residue on your fingers. Because the amount of flour can vary widely in yeast recipes based on how you measure flour, humidity, etc., I think if your dough was overly sticky and not clearing the bowl that you need to add more flour. I use my Bosch mixer to knead the dough and depending on where I’ve lived (living at a high altitude, dry climate and now living at humid, sea level), sometimes I add as much as 8 cups of flour. It’s hard to put a specific amount because it will depend on each person making them. Hope that helps a little!
Excellent recipe for vanilla frosting!
Thanks – MakingVanilla.com
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Melanie,
I made the pudding cinnamom rolls today and they are superb. Your recipe was very easy to follow and totally foolproof in my opinion. Cant wait for hubby to get home and try them. He will be impressed! Gonna share some with our neighbor too. Thank you so much for sharing!
Vicki from Oklahoma
These were amazing! I think they are the best cinnamon rolls in the world. =)
good roll!!! http://www.ccchinachic.com u can find u need or like!!
I made these cinnamon rolls and the women couldn’t get enough of them. This recipe makes 24 VERY LARGE rolls. I took them to a fish fry and they were devoured by about 10 women and a few small children within 5 hours …..followed by body wraps, of course LOL. The recipe said to spread the softened butter over the dough and sprinkle with the brown sugar/cinnamon mixture but I mixed the butter with the brown sugar and cinnamon and spread it on that way. I also put pecans in half of them and that was wonderful. I highly recommend this recipe !!!!
I might add that it took closer to 8 cups of flour with kneading so that the dough wasn’t too sticky. I didn’t use an electric mixer but would recommend doing so because of the stickiness of the dough and not knowing exactly how much flour you will need. I doubled the recipe and it seemed like forever kneading it to get the stickiness to go awy. BUT it was worth every minute it took. This is by far the best cinnamon roll recipe I have ever made. Thanks for sharing it with us.
OMG Just made these and they are awesome! I have tried several and these are the ones! I didn’t even have as much yeast as it called for and they still turned out. Now if I can figure out how to incorporate pumpkin into them.
I made these for Christmas last year! Baked half and froze half!! They were so good! I will definitely make these again!!!
Hey Mel,
Your rolls Look very delicous. Thanks for the recipe but i had My Problems with the instant pudding. In Germany we make One package pudding with 2 cups of milk. So therefore i had to put alot more flour then u wrote. I also used2 of them haha so alot more flour was needed. Could u Tell me how much of our German pudding i have to use to get the exact flour amount for the dough. Thanks alot
Hi Esma, unfortunately, I’m afraid I’m not familiar with the German pudding at all. Sorry I can’t be more help! Perhaps just try using one package next time?
Hey! I just made your recipe from pinterest, they are awesome!!! Thank you very much for sharing the recipe! Mucho gracias.
wow! the cream cheese frosting looks so yummy on the bread. i bet this smells so good!
These recipes look amazing!! Thank you for sharing!! Now mommy can have a “nice” popsicle with the littles
Roughly how much vanilla pudding does a 3 1/2 ounce package produce? I want to use pudding made from scratch!:)
Anon – sorry, I don’t know the answer to that since I’ve never officially measured the pudding. You might try googling the answer. Also, I know there are a lot of comments on this post and they are cumbersome to read through, but I seem to remember someone else had used homemade pudding so you might read through to get their feedback.
I don’t have the strength to knead by hand and would like to use a stand mixer. Does anyone else do this? and how long would I let it run?
After years of making the pioneer woman’s recipe for cinnamon rolls, my kids have begged me to convert to this one! And I have to agree that it is the best! About to get ready to make and freeze for Christmas morning. Thanks!!
I’ve run across your blog while looking for an Italian bread to go with my Italian dinner for Christmas Eve and came across your Ciabatta and can’t wait to try it tomorrow. Then I noticed your Cinnamon Rolls and checked them out – come to find out you use the same recipe I began to use a several years ago. Mine calls for corn syrup for the filling, it’s great when you bake them right away, but I froze some and with the corn syrup all of the filling ran out during the freezing process. When I freeze I use butter and they are fantastic. I am going to have to make some more very soon. I’ll let you know how the Ciabatta comes out – I use an Electrolux Assistent for my bread, really for almost everything, and I love the way all of my bread comes out — as light as professionally made bread.
Came across your recipe on Pinterest and decided to make tonight for the holiday. WOW! Amazing. So soft and yummy, and the frosting is just perfect. I don’t think I rolled out the dough enough, though, because when I rolled everything up, it was a huge roll and a little difficult to cut. I ended up making 12 huge rolls instead of 24. I wonder if you could make a cinnamon bread out of this instead of the rolls? Might have to try it since I’m so un-coordinated!
Just made these rolls tonight…. AMAZING!!!! So easy, so delicious. I’m in love!
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Not too long ago, I had a cinnamon roll “cook-off,” and I was pretty certain that I had an absolutely winner – http://tuesdaynightboyfriend.wordpress.com/2012/11/04/cinnamon-roll-throwdown-winner/ – but after seeing this picture, I neeeeeeeed to make these.
I didn’t think cinnamon rolls could be improved upon until I saw these. Definitely will try them this weekend!
Great news! I only had a half package of cook and serve vanilla pudding in my cupboard but desperately wanted to try making these so went against all the baking common sense voices in my head and tried making a half recipe of these babies. Doing things like this usually results in utter disaster about 80% of the time but NOT TODAY! Yes, I had to cook and cool the pudding but the rolls turned out fantastically. SO delicious. I’m going to make them again (with instant pudding this time). YAY dangerously unhealthy Friday food!
The flavor of these are awesome!! But, I must be doing something wrong. The texture of the rolls are more like bread…nothing like every other cinnamon roll I have tried. I do not know what I am doing wrong. Any suggestions?
Robin – hmmm, I don’t really know what you mean, I guess. What texture are you going for? I’ve always thought cinnamon rolls were like bread, just a bit softer and gooier. You might try adding a bit less flour and see how that works.
Melanie! I LOVE your blog…I have tried several of your recipes. Does this recipe work making it the night before and refrigerating the rolls then let them rise in the morning?
Hi Wendi – it sure does! I’ve done that many times.
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I haven’t eaten breakfast yet this morning, and I can’t get this cinnamon roll out of my mind. Thanks so much for sharing! Can’t wait to try them. Have a wonderful day!
I constantly emailed this blog post page to all my friends,
for the reason that if like to read it then my friends will too.
Oh my goodness this recipe is a keeper they turned out just fantastic. I made the dough the night before and just covered and left raise in my oven overnight. Baked them the next morning they were just delish. I will only make this recipe when we want fresh cinnamon rolls . Thank you for the fantastic recipe !