These Cinna-Mini Cinnamon Rolls are a classic ooey, gooey cinnamon roll topped with a rich cream cheese frosting in a fun mini size perfect for a party. Betcha can’t eat just one.
A while back, my sweet friend Annalise, Completely Delicious, hosted a pot luck baby shower brunch for our good friend Becky, Vintage Mixer. When you go to a pot luck party with food bloggers, you know you’re going to eat well, and the pressure’s on to make something extra special.
Becky mentioned in a comment on my Simply Sinful Cinnamon Muffins post that one of her only pregnancy cravings has been cinnamon rolls, so I couldn’t resist making cinnamon rolls to take to the shower.
To make them easy to eat and serve at a pot lucky party, I decided to make mini cinnamon rolls like the ones you can get at the mall.
Amanda, Kevin and Amanda, baked some cute baby cinnamon rolls for a virtual baby shower last year. It’s a super easy, quick version made with crescent roll dough, but I wanted to use a traditional sweet yeast dough. I found just what I was looking for on the King Arthur Flour website. Their “Cinnabon clone” recipe.
I filled them with the King Arthur Baker’s Cinnamon Filling, but if you don’t have that, I’ve given the ingredients for a substitute.
I baked them in mini muffin tins, but you could also bake them on a baking sheet if you don’t have mini muffin pans. You can use dental floss or a serrated knife to cut your rolls, but I like to use my plastic dough scraper.
The little cinnamon rolls are a bit more work to make than big ones, but they’re perfect for a party. Most people had two or three, and even took some home for “their kids.” 😉 Kalyn, Kalyn’s Kitchen, gave them two thumbs up and said they reminded her of the ones her mom use to make for her growing up.
I recently made them again for my family and thought it was time to share the post again with updated pictures. My family of six devoured all 48 of these rolls in 1 day. You definitely need to give these luscious three bite cinnamon rolls a try.
Cinna-Mini Cinnamon Rolls
Ingredients
- 4-4 ½ cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 ¼ teaspoons 1 package instant yeast
- 1 ¾ teaspoons salt
- 1 cup milk
- ⅓ cup unsalted butter cut up
- 2 large eggs room temperature
- ½ cup water*
- 1 cup Baker’s Cinnamon Filling mix*
- *Or substitute ⅓ cup 2 ⅝ ounces unsalted butter, softened, 1 cup (7 ¼ ounces) brown sugar, packed, 3 tablespoons (¾ ounce) ground cinnamon
- one 3-ounce package cream cheese softened
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter softened
- 1 ½ cups glazing or confectioners’ sugar
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon milk
Instructions
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, using the paddle attachment, combine 3 ½ cups flour, sugar, yeast, and salt.
- In saucepan or microwave safe dish, heat milk and butter until warm (120°–130°F). Add heated milk and butter to flour mixture. Mix in eggs. Blend at low speed until moistened. Beat 3 minutes at medium speed.
- Switch to the dough hook and mix in the remaining flour a little at a time, to make a soft dough, adding more or less flour as needed. Knead the dough for 5 minutes. Place in greased bowl, turning to grease top. Cover; let rest 15 minutes.
- While the dough is resting, prepare the filling by mixing the Baker’s Cinnamon Filling with enough water to make filling with a soft, pudding-like consistency. Set it aside. Spray 48 mini muffin cups with non stick cooking spray.
- Divide dough in four equal pieces and keep remaining pieces covered with plastic wrap. On a floured surface, roll the dough into an 8×12″ rectangle. Spread ¼ of the filling evenly over the dough.
- Starting with the long end, roll the dough into a log, and cut it into 12 slices. Place each piece, cut edges up, in a mini muffin cup. Repeat with remaining dough.
- Loosely cover muffin pans with plastic wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled, about 60 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 375°F
- Bake 10 to 15 minutes until rolls are golden brown. Remove to a wire rack to cool. While rolls are cooling, make the icing.
- IcingIn a small bowl, beat together the cream cheese, butter, sugar, and vanilla. Spread the icing on the buns while they’re warm.
- Serve warm or at room temperature.
Notes
More cinnamon roll recipes you might like:
- A fun, easy to make petal-shaped Cinnamon Roll Coffee Cake drizzled with a sweet glaze. Sweet Petals Coffee Cake from Barbara Bakes
- Pumpkin Fantail Cinnamon Rolls, perfect for fall from Barbara Bakes
- Banana Bread Cinnamon Rolls, a fun combo of banana bread and cinnamon rolls. Cooking Classy
- Parry’s Cinnamon Rolls a classic cinnamon roll from Two Peas and Their Pod
- Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls topped with a heavenly cream cheese frosting from Heartbeet Kitchen.
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Kari
When you say to place in grease in grease bowl, turning to grease top
Barbara Schieving
Hi Kari – use butter or cooking spray to butter the bowl you are rising the dough in, then put the dough in the bowl, turn to dough over and the top of the dough will have butter on it. Enjoy!
Carrie Blackburn
SO glad I found this recipe. I wanted to make these for a breakfast with our church family, but all I could find were methods that used canned crescent rolls (ewwww). I’m so excited to try this. Of course, we’ll have to do an experimental batch today and test them out. It’s the smart thing to do. *wink wink nod nod* Thanks for posting!
Barbara Schieving
Hi Carrie – so glad you found me too. I totally understand the necessity of taste testing. 😉 I’m sure these will be a hit at the church breakfast.
Melissa @ My Recent Favorite Books
These look so yummy! Your photos are great!
cinnamon rolls are my weakness…
Jasmine
Hi Barbara,
So happy that you decided to do this before I ventured to try! I had an obsession with making cinnamon rolls mini in the last week I’ve tried it 3 times, needless to say I have lots of frozen cinnamon rolls and have consumed more than I care to admit. My problem is i) that I only have one mini cupcake pan so I end up freezing the 24 that can’t fit into the tins, and ii) that when I roll it into an 8 x 12 rectangle and roll them up and cut it into twelfths they are still too big for my muffin tin, I am not sure what I am doing wrong but they barely fit in the tin when I first get them in and when they rise they pop out tremendously and look much less presentable than yours. I tried cutting down on the yeast so they don’t rise so much as well as refrigerating the dough for 2 hours so it retards the rising but it just rose more! I’m wondering if I need to divide the dough into 6 pieces instead of 4 and make them 5 or 6 x 12? Please help!
Barbara Schieving
Hi Jasmine – So glad you’re enjoying them. Makes me wish I had some in the freezer.
Sounds like you need to make your rolls smaller so they fit easily in to the mini muffin pan. You could divide the dough in to 5 pieces and still roll them out in to a 8×12. Or you could try just gently stretching the log once it’s rolled up to thin it out a bit and then cut it in to 16 pieces instead of 12. Or you could roll it 8×16 and cut it in to 16 pieces. Whatever seems easier to you.
You could also cut the recipe in half if you don’t want some many rolls. Although cinnamon rolls in the freezer is never a bad thing.
I started out with one mini muffin tin, but quickly found I needed a second. Have fun!
Deb
I’ve made the mock cinnabon recipe and loved it…I had the idea to put them in mini tins and was hoping someone else tried before I ventured…voila, I found your blog! Gotta get another mini muffin pan hopefully I can sneak it in somehow, hubby doesn’t understand my obsession and the need for multiple pans 🙂 Thanks for the recipe!
Barbara Schieving
I totally understand your “need” for pans 🙂 Enjoy!
Mary
If you substitute for the baker’s cinnamon, do you still mix with water? Thanks!
Barbara Schieving
Great question Mary – no, you wouldn’t use the water. Thanks!
ymr
HI,
i made this recipe for my niece firts communion! and it was a success!
they taste really delicious!
thanks for your recipes!
Barbara Schieving
Thanks!. Glad to be a little part of her special day.
Jenni
These are adorable and look so delicious! 🙂
Quinn
Hi!
These look great! If I wanted to make these beforehand for a party I was hosting, when would be best to freeze?
I was thinking after preparing them in the muffin tins and letting them rise. Then, bake straight out of the freezer. Would this work?
Thanks!
Barbara Schieving
Thanks Quinn! You have a couple of options. Either freeze them right after you shape them in a single layer, then once they are frozen you can but them in a Ziplock bag. When you want to bake them, take them out of the freezer and put them in mini muffin tins, cover and let rise and bake as directed.
Or par bake them until they are mostly baked and start to brown and then cool and freeze. When you’re ready to serve them, thaw them and bake them for a few more minutes until they’re golden brown.
Please come back and let me know what you decided to do.
Barbara Schieving
Also, Red Star recommends not using Instant yeast when freezing dough. So I would substitute regular active dry yeast and let the dough rise until double before punching it down and shaping.
Quinn
Thanks Barbara! I made them and they were absolutely delicious- especially the cream cheese frosting! I ended up par baking them, freezing, and then thawing and baking them until finished and they turned out fantastic. Definitely will be bookmarking this recipe!
Barbara Schieving
Thanks for the update! I’m so glad you loved them. I think I’ll par bake and freeze them the next time I make them too.
Monica
I love that these are miniature versions of cinnamon rolls. Perfect for breakfast!
Nutmeg Nanny
Oh my, these are irresistible! I love cinnamon rolls 🙂 I bet yours are amazing!
Traci
Aw! I love mini anything! These turned out so well. For whatever reason, mini anything and I have a love/hate relationship. I can always justify eating more because they are smaller. 🙂
Cindy Harris
Wow, these do look yummy. Love the little size, sometimes a big cinnamon roll is just too much. These look perfect.
Barbara
Wouldn’t those be perfect for a holiday breakfast? Yum, Barbara!
Barbara Schieving
Thanks! It’s definitely mine kind of breakfast.
Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella
I can imagine how delicious the food would have been at a food blogger’s event! These look fabulous mum, I remember eating these years ago when I visited the US and they were so moreish! xxx
P.S. I’m so glad that you like the book! Thanks for buying it! 😀
Chaya
I am a cinnamon lover and the minute I sniff one, I am ravenous. These beauties would get to me quickly —- they are stunning.
teresa
they’re so cute, i want a whole basket of them to snack on! by the way, i have a shout out to your monkey bread on my blog 🙂
Rosie @ Blueberry Kitchen
These look SO good, I love that they’re mini too!
2 sisters recipes
Barbara I love your new design – your blog is beautiful! And you are killing me with these mini cinnamon rolls…. I can eat everyone of them! lol….
Barbara Schieving
Thanks! I’m hoping it’s easier to find the recipes you’re looking for and maybe even some you didn’t know you were looking for. The cinnamon rolls are irresistible 🙂
Rachel @ Baked by Rachel
These are seriously so cute!