Soft eggless Cinnamon Rolls with a cream cheese glaze are super fluffy and light and just the right amount of sweet – perfect for breakfast or your Sunday brunch.
Cinnamon rolls are a popular breakfast dish in US and Northern parts of Europe, presumably originated from Sweden. They are indeed a delight – soft and fluffy bread that’s mildly sweet with a gooey filling that smells heavenly! Don’t let the eggs in recipes you find online drive you away, these eggless cinnamon rolls will tick all the right boxes.
The yeast dough is pretty simple and straight-forward. After the first proof, dough is rolled thin (as thin as you can go) and a soft butter-brown sugar-cinnamon mixture is then spread across the whole dough. The dough is then rolled up, cut into slices and put in a pan for the second rise. The second rise is very important to get fluffy and light cinnamon rolls. These are easy to make ahead a night before – just put the pan in fridge at this stage. The morning you want to bake them, pull them out of the refrigerate and allow them to rise for about an hour. Bake away.
After the homemade cinnamon rolls have baked and look like cinnamon heaven, it’s time to frost them. You can add the icing while the rolls are warm and allow it all to soak in.
- Easy Glaze: 1 1/2 cups icing sugar mixed with 2-4 tbsp milk. Whisk ingredients together to form a glaze. Using a spoon, drizzle evenly over the rolls.
- Cream Cheese Glaze– the tangy flavours balances the sweetness of rolls perfectly.
- Leave them as is without any frosting – you can add raisins and walnuts into the filling and get some healthy muffin-life breakfast options.
This recipe makes 12-16 rolls depending on how large or small pieces you cut. Use a round 9″ pan or a 9″x 13″ pan for this recipe.
Eggless Cinnamon Rolls
Ingredients
Dough
- 360 g all purpose flour
- 50 g caster sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- 50 g melted unsalted butter
- 200 g lukewarm milk
- 7 g dried yeast – equal to 1 packet or 2 tsp
Filling
- 50 g unsalted butter – soft at room temperature
- 100 g light brown sugar
- 1 tbsp cinnamon powder
- ½ tbsp cornflour
- ¼ tsp salt
Cream Cheese Glaze
- 50 g cream cheese – softened
- 30 g icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1-2 tbsp milk – as required
Instructions
- Activate the yeast – take the lukewarm milk and melted butter in a small bowl, add 1 tbsp of sugar, sprinkle the yeast and mix. Let it rest for 10 minutes. The yeast will start getting frothy and bubbles will come up. (If this doesn’t happen, your yeast has either expired or the water is too hot).
- In a large bowl, sift your dry ingredients – flour, remaining sugar and salt.
- Add the activated yeast mixture to your dry ingredients. Mix with a wooden spoon till you get a shaggy dough.
- Transfer everything to a clean surface and knead it for about 10 minutes till you get a soft and elastic dough. You can use your stand mixer with dough hook attachment as well for this.
- Put the dough into a well-oiled bowl and cover with cling wrap and a clean kitchen towel. Let it rest for 60-90 minutes in a warm dry place till it doubles in size. (I keep mine in a switched-off microwave oven).
- While the dough is rising, prepare the cinnamon filling. In a bowl, mix cinnamon, brown sugar and salt. Add softened butter and mix well. Keep aside.
- Once the dough has proofed, punch it in the bowl to remove the air and take it out on a clean surface.
- Flour your surface and rolling pin. Roll out the dough to a rectangle of about 12" x 15" or till about half inch thickness.
- Rub the butter-sugar mixture all over the dough evenly and gently press it in the dough.
- Starting on the long end, roll the dough up tightly jelly roll style.
- Cut into 12 even slices with a sharp knife or dough cutter and place in a well-greased 9" x 13" baking pan or a round 9" pan. You can also cut them into smaller slices. Keep them a little spaced apart.
- Cover the pan and allow the rolls to rise for 20 minutes or until nearly double.
- Preheat the oven to 180 C/350 F.
- Bake the cinnamon rolls at 180 C for 18-20 minutes until the rolls are lightly golden brown and the center rolls are cooked through. You can see the colour and also slightly press them in center to see if they are cooked and spring back.
- While the rolls are baking, prepare the cream cheese frosting. In a large bowl, combine the softened cream cheese and the powdered sugar. Beat until combined. Add vanilla extract and mix. Add 1 or 2 tbsp of milk till you get the desired pouring consistency.
- Spread the frosting over the cinnamon rolls as soon as they're out of the oven. Let the rolls cool completely. Store in an airtight container.
Bake them in the same pan? Or it can be baked in a tray? And middle rack or lower rack?
You can bake them in round pan or square – both work fine. I bake them in middle rack in my oven.