Quick 1 Hour Cinnamon Rolls Recipe

With the weather cooling down and the holidays underway, it’s the perfect time to cozy up with some warm, fresh out of the oven cinnamon rolls. This from scratch, one hour quick cinnamon rolls recipe is great for cozy mornings or a warm dessert.

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Ingredients for 1 hour quick cinnamon rolls recipe

Classic cinnamon rolls have three parts we need to make. The bread dough, cinnamon sugar filling, and cream cheese topping. This recipe uses less refined sugar than classic cinnamon rolls and is easily adaptable to remove the refined sugar entirely.

Cinnamon rolls dough

• warm water about 115F
• honey or maple syrup – use raw local honey, or pure maple syrup
• active dry yeast
• butter – from grass fed cows if your budget allows
• sea salt – we love Redmond’s Real Salt, seriously guys it’s the best in flavor and is packed with minerals your body needs. Also, if you love supporting American companies this is an easy one to get behind 🙂
• egg – from pastured hens for the most nutrients, but don’t sweat it if that’s to expensive for ya right now.
• flour – organic unbleached flour or use whole wheat for a healthier option (sub half the water with yogurt of buttermilk to help break down the gluten and make a softer bun if using whole wheat.)

Cinnamon sugar filling

• ground cinnamon
• butter – from grass fed cows if can
• brown sugar – for a healthier, refined sugar free cinnamon roll, use coconut sugar, date sugar, or sucanat
• vanilla extract – absolutely only use real vanilla extract… the imitation stuff is nasty 🤢

Cream cheese icing

• cream cheese
• heavy cream
• maple syrup or honey
• vanilla

How to make quick one hour cinnamon rolls

Before beginning, grab a baking dish 9×9 or larger and grease it with butter, coconut oil, lard, tallow…. whatever fat suits your fancy, and set it aside.

Now, first things first, we need to make the dough.

In a large bowl, mix together the warm water, maple syrup or honey, and active dry yeast. Let it sit for a couple minutes until the mixture is bubbly and smells a bit like alcohol.

Next, add butter, egg, and salt to the yeast mixture and stir to combine. The egg doesn’t need to be fully incorporated, the goal is to disperse the salt evenly.

Add half the flour called for and mix until fully combine. Then add more flour 1/2 cup at a time until the dough forms a cohesive ball and isn’t too sticky to work with. Knead gently for a minute or to until the dough forms a smooth top. Cover while we make the cinnamon sugar mixture.

Now that the dough is made it’s off to making our cinnamon sugar filling. In a small bowl mix together softened butter, cinnamon, brown sugar, and vanilla. I simply used a fork to mix everything together but you could also use a beater if you’d prefer.

Next, we are going to roll out our dough into a roughly 15″x12″ rectangle. Don’t worry about measuring, you just want a decent sized rectangle. Once that’s rolled out go ahead and start spreading the cinnamon sugar mixture over the dough. A silicone spatula works great at spreading the cinnamon sugar, but you can also use a butter knife or your hands if your feeling spicy 😅

Moving on, we get to roll up our cinnamon rolls! This is so much fun in my opinion. You can go about this two ways. One, you can roll up the whole rectangle into a log and cut the log into individual buns. Or you can cut strips into your rectangle and roll up the strips. Either way works just fine, it’s simply a matter of preference. We chose to cut the dough into strips since it’s easier to keep the buns nice, plump and round.

Place your adorable little cinnamon rolls into your greased baking pan and cover while the oven preheats. Bake your creations for 20-25 minutes or until golden brown and the internal temperature is 190F.

While your cinnamon rolls are baking, whisk together softened cream cheese, heavy cream, maple syrup and vanilla. When your cinnamon rolls are done baking, spoon, pour, or brush this delicious topping onto your buns. If you have extra topping, save if for dipping 😋

Serve your buns warm, of course, and enjoy.

I hope you love this quick 1 hour cinnamon rolls recipe and let me know if you try it in the comments below!

Happy baking 😊