I have to forewarn you that I’m dedicating a fairly large portion of this post to one of the most fantastic things I’ve baked up in a long time, mmkay? But first…
Things are looking up today. WAY up. On Friday the 13th, no less! Got up and cleaned the house, room by room (tidy, dust, vacuum, repeat!) then crushed this monster to-do list in an hour and a half, as every place I had to visit was within a 2 mile radius of each other. Sweet!
Highlights include stocking up on summer-shade (summer!) foundation & powder at Sephora in the mall, then stumbling upon a 2-hour, 40%-off sale at Banana Republic, where I hooked Ben up with oodles of shirts for $90 less than I would have paid for them without the sale – FTW!
Then it got good. I mean, real good. I came home and spent the grey & drizzly afternoon whipping up a recipe from In Jennie’s Kitchen that’s been burning a hole in my back pocket for a few weeks now – dense, gooey, mouth-watering no-yeast required cinnamon rolls!
OH.MA.GAH. I am dying over this recipe! See, I’ve baked with yeast several times in the past year, and the recipes have turned out well, more or less, but sometimes I just don’t have the time or patience to deal with it, ya’ know?
Homemade cinnamon rolls without the hassle of making sure the milk’s the right temperature? The yeast is activating? The dough has doubled in size?
They exists, my friends. They exist! And here’s how you make ‘em: Start by combining the cinnamon roll filling ingredients: brown sugar, granulated sugar, cinnamon, salt & butter.
Mix it up.
In a separate, larger bowl, combine flour, more sugar & salt, plus the leavening agents that let us ditch that pesky yeast.
Baking powder and baking soda. Booyah.
Whisk together more butter with buttermilk, then pour the mixture into the dry ingredients.
Stir with a stiff spoon or spatula juuuuuust until the dough comes together. If you over-mix, you will have hard cinnamon rolls. Then, to quote Dave & Sarah, everyone will laugh at you. And we can’t have that.
Gently kneed the dough into a ball, then divide into two halves.
Turn each half onto a flat, floured surface, then press on half the filling mixture.
Roll the dough up like a log, then pinch the top seam shut. This is the part where I noticed the biggest difference between a yeast-required vs. non-yeast-required cinnamon roll dough. This dough is MUCH easier to handle. Not as sticky, and more firm.
Slice, slice, baby!
Oh yeah!
The recipe says to place the cinnamon rolls into a greased 11×8″ pan. I seemed to have misplaced mine sometime in the last month, so I spit the rolls between 8×8″ and 6×4″ pans. MAKE SURE YOU GREASE THEM FIRST! If you don’t, you’ll be sorry! Now pop those puppies in a piping hot oven.
In the quick 15 minutes they take to bake, whip up some cream cheese icing.
Mash together powdered sugar and cream cheese with a fork, then drizzle in buttermilk and whisk until smooth.
Next take those GORGEOUS, bubbly, golden-brown rolls out of the oven, (ahhh!)
and pretend you live in a world where Grandmas still place hot pies on their windowsills to cool. Place yours on a wooden stool in front of the open back-porch door instead…
Then breeeeeathe in the Heavenly, sweet aroma that’s swirling around your kitchen.
Now ice, ice,
BABY!
Cinnamon Rolls – No Yeast Required!
Makes 16 rolls. From In Jennie’s Kitchen.
Ingredients:
Filling:
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 Tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 Tablespoons butter, melted
Dough:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour, plus more for rolling out dough
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup buttermilk
5 Tablespoons butter, melted and divided
Icing:
3oz cream cheese, softened
4 Tablespoons buttermilk
1 cup powdered sugar
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 425. Combine filling ingredients in a small bowl, then mix with a fork until well blended.
2. In a another, larger bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Whisk together buttermilk and 4 Tablespoons melted butter in a separate bowl, then pour into the middle of the dry ingredients. Stir together until dough just comes together (do not overmix.) Kneed slightly with your hands until the dough forms into a ball, then slice it in half.
3. On a lightly floured surface, roll each half into a 12×8″ rectangle (think slightly longer than a sheet of paper.) Press half the filling mixture into the center, leaving 1/4″ of the dough clear on all 4 sides, then roll like a sausage. Pinch together seam, trim ends and cut into 8 slices. Repeat with the other dough half, then place rolls in a non-stick sprayed 11×8″ pan, or an 8×8 and 6×4″ pan. Brush cinnamon rolls with remaining Tablespoon of melted butter and bake for 15 minutes, or until tops are golden brown.
4. Meanwhile, to make the icing, mash together softened cream cheese and powdered sugar with a fork until smooth. Whisk in buttermilk, 1 Tablespoon at a time, until creamy. Drizzle onto hot cinnamon rolls and spread evenly.
I can’t remember the last time I was this excited about a recipe! I just can’t get over how much easier these were than cinnamon rolls made with yeast-required dough. So rich and scrumptious too!
Here are the differences between yeast-required & no-yeast-required cinnamon rolls, in my experience/opinion:
- No-yeast dough is much more firm and cooperative than sticky, yeast-required dough – which makes it much easier to handle, roll out and cut.
- The texture of a baked no-yeast roll is more dense than a yeast-required roll. Not better or worse, just different. Allllmost like a heavy pancake?!
- I saved HOURS in the kitchen by ditching the yeast!
Ok, ok – bakers – please don’t get angry with me. There is definitely something to be said about baking with yeast. It’s very rewarding, and I’m not giving it up for good (I still need to try and make homemade bread!) it’s just that – if you don’t have a machine or anything, it takes time.
So if you get a craving for warm, fresh cinnamon rolls that needs to be squashed NOW, then you need to make these!
Want to know what goes really well with a warm cinnamon roll? Coffee. 
Right now through June 1st, you can get anything at Green Mountain Coffee for 15% off, shipped free, by using code: AM0013-3592 at checkout. They make TONS of K-cup varieties, and sell regular coffee too.
Right now I’m obsessed with Gloria Jean’s Hazelnut coffee. It’s the best K-cup flavor I’ve tried yet – even better than Chocolate Donut! And that’s sayin’ something… 
Well tonight I think Ben and I are going to rent a Redbox. A quick peruse of their Top 20 rentals has me debating between The Green Hornet, No Strings Attached (although I feel that might be dumb) and Love & Other Drugs. Seen any of them?
Have a WONDERFUL night. TGIF!
~~~~~
Do you prefer to cook or bake (or just eat!)?
I think I get more tickled about baking – as in seeing something look one way when it goes into the oven and seeing it transformed into something completely different when it comes out – but I love the fun of being able to throw this, that and the other into a pan without having to measure, and calling it dinner!
Ok, it seems like the one person who has commented on this post who enjoys baking and LOVES to use yeast just CAN NOT get these right…I think. BTW, I was talking about me. What did I do wrong? They were WAY TOO sweet (and trust me, I eat cookie dough for a snack, I love sweet!) and my dough was super sticky and I was so scared to add more flour. They were so sweet I couldn’t eat more than 3 before feeling really sick.
Jeri, I make all my cookies using crisco sticks. The regular cookie batters are too stiff for me to try and fool with them, but since I have found crisco sticks I never mess up a good cookie. I hope you try them and see how your recipe comes out. Good Luck. Oh and I love your cinnamon rolls, thank you.
I just cooked these for some friends and myself as a late night snack and I think they are amazing. They turned out perfect for me, but I wasn’t shy with the flour when kneading or rolling; I used just enough to prevent sticking. I also didn’t have a problem with the sweetness but I suppose you could take out the extra sugar added to the dry ingredients of the dough, but I’m no professional baker so you would have to double check on that. I also added a little bit of lemon extract to the icing recipe and we all really enjoyed that as well. Thanks for the recipe!
You said you should try making your own bread but that you don’t like spending hours in the kitchen. This recipe sounds perfect for you! I’ve made it with a variety of flours and plain old all purpose flour has given me the best loaf so far, but they’ve all been good.
no-knead bread
3 cups flour
¼ tsp instant yeast
1 ¼ tsp salt
1 5/8 cup water
Combine flour, yeast, and salt. Add water. Stir until blended: dough will be shaggy and sticky. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise 12-18 h. Dough is ready when surface is dotted with bubbles.
Lightly flour work surface and fold dough over on itself 1-2 times. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise 15 min.
Lightly flour work surface and gently and quickly form into ball, pulling taut and pinching seam. Place with seam down and loosely cover for 2 h until dough doubles in size and does not readily spring back when poked.
Pre-heat oven and dutch oven to 450 degrees. Place dough in pot, seam side up. Shake pot to even out dough. Cover and bake for 30 min. Uncover and bake until browned (10-30 min). Cool on rack.
Makes one 1 ½ pound loaf.
From the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/08/dining/081mrex.html
ok, so I am most definately a baker (my boyfriend does the cooking) and one sunday morning we wanted cinnamon rolls but hadn’t picked any up at the store. being as we didn’t have any yeast in the house i went on a mad hunt for a recipe that didn’t have yeast. These are friggin awesome…just right. didn’t have a single problem. used milk instead of buttermilk though. this recipe is a keeper.
OK, I just have a couple of quick questions. I made these and the filling bubbled out all over…still very tasty, but messy. Is the filling suppose to be dry? I added more butter to the filling cause it looked too dry, it was still powdery. Is this why it got all bubbly all over? Also…why is there salt in the filling? I left it out.
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Can I make the dough, refridgerate overnight and then bake the next day?
I’m not sure as I’ve never tried it before, although I have to think it might work! Let me know if you give it a try!
[...] from Iowa Girl Eats Pardon the picture. The only time I could snap a shot was when they were half eaten on the plate. [...]
These were absolutely amazing!! LOVED THEM!!! So easy to make! Thanks for sharing it
Thank you for posting this receipe!! I made them tonight for my 11 year old daughter (who happens to be a chocoholic!) and she said they were better than anything I have ever baked!! Now that is a compliment! I substituted whole wheat white flour for the all purpose flour and they came out great!!
I’ve just made these and they were heavenly. However, a few things went wrong and most probably it’s my fault. I didn’t have packed brown sugar so my filling was not as moist as it looks in your pics. I also substituted buttermilk with yogurt because I didn’t have any. Only problem is they stuck to the pan though it was very generously greased.
One more question when I add the icing should they be piping hot or just warm? I put the icing when they were just out of the oven and it kind of melted instead of forming a layer over them.
Easy and wonderful! Thank you!
[...] ingredient this time around, so I went searching further abroad. I found the base recipe I used on Iowa Girl Eats. It makes for a lovely, soft biscuit-type roll. While baking soda and baking powder do allow for a [...]
These are AMAZING. Made them this morning for the family and they were a huge hit. So easy and fast, and made with ingredients I always have on hand. I’ll definitely be making these again and again!
I have no baking powder is that okay?
Hey Samantha! The baking powder is what makes the cinnamon rolls light and fluffy. I wouldn’t recommend making them without it!
When a recipe calls for all purpose flour it also calls for baking powder and baking soda and salt. I have used self rising flour instead and I don’t have to put in the added baking powder and baking soda or the salt, it is already in the flour. So no you do not have to use it, just use self rising flour.
This was my first time making cinnamonrolls from scratch and these were delicious! Very easy and sooooo good. Didn’t have buttermilk, but they turned out great with regular milk. Thanks for the recipe!
Hi, the rolls look great! But when they came out of the oven, the insides were very mushy, almost raw. Is there something that caused this?
I would just bing them until cooked way through. If the rolls on the edge of the pan are browning before the center, just lay a piece of foil on top!
These were amazing! We are currently living in South Africa and always miss the Midwest baking.
ummmmm.. I used this recipe to make the rolls. how do I prevent the top of the rolls from being hard, also the dough taste weird, is it because i used too much baking powder?