90 Minute Cinnamon Rolls is one of my oldest and most trusted cinnamon roll recipes. The other name for the recipe is Cinnamon Rolls with Instant Yeast, but that's not very catchy. Plus a lot of cinnamon rolls use instant yeast. You could call these Muffin Tin Cinnamon Rolls, but you don't have to use the muffin tin. Whatever you call it, this is one of the best cinnamon roll recipes. I think so, and so does Charlie Brown.
Is 90 Minutes a Lie?
It's not a lie, but let's be real. Times will vary. However, I am a very fast baker and so are a lot of people when breakfast is involved Even on weekends, you probably want to get these done before everyone wakes up. The 90 minute time is doable.
- Step 1: Heat milk in microwave. Add the butter and let cool. While that's happening, put the mixer bowl on the scale and add the ingredients by weight (8 minutes).
- Step 2: Mix with the scraper, then let the dough hook knead until smooth. As it kneads, add the rest of the flour (7 minutes).
- Step 3: Allow the dough to stand in the bowl (10 minutes) - You can let it stand longer if you'd like.
- Step 4: Press or roll into a rectangle (5 minutes). Dough is easy to work with.
- Step 5-10: Sprinkle with filling, roll in spiral, cut, then set in greased jumbo muffin cups (5 minutes).
- Step 11: Let cut spirals rise (30 minutes).
- Step 12: Bake! (20 to 25 minutes).
- Step 13: You have plenty of time to prep icing while rolls bake, so stirring it together and pouring it on is a quick process.
Zippy Yeast! SAF Gold Label Instant Yeast
SAF yeast is what I call Le Saffre Saf-Instant Yeast. There is a red label and a gold label type. The red label SAF can be used for all types of bread while the gold label SAF is specially formulated for high sugar breads. I only buy gold label SAF instant yeast, and I use it in all my breads including ones without sugar. So far it's worked just fine.
Jumbo Muffin Cups
You can skip the muffin cups if you'd like. However, putting each cut roll in a jumbo muffin cup helps them rise a little taller. The other advantage to the muffin cups is that you get slightly chewy sides. Plus sometimes the brown sugar caramelizes on the bottom. Yum. Just remember to really grease the cups well, which you can do while the dough is standing. I brush the cups heavily with softened butter using a pastry brush.
Here's an older photo of ones made in a muffin cup. I used a normal size muffin cup for that one and made smaller cinnamon rolls. The jumbo size tins work better.
Cream Cheese Icing or Not
I always put some kind of icing on cinnamon rolls, but I don't always add the cream cheese. If you don't have cream cheese, just leave it out. The icing will be thinner and less opaque. I've even made the icing with just melted butter, sugar, vanilla and water.
Salt in Cinnamon Rolls
Since posting this recipe, I've increased the salt from ½ teaspoon to ¾ teaspoon. If you use salted butter you can stick with the ½ teaspoon, but I usually make 90 Minute Cinnamon Rolls with unsalted butter, so ¾ teaspoon is better. For the filling, if you use unsalted butter, be sure to add a pinch of salt (⅛ to about ¼).
Recipe
90 Minute Cinnamon Rolls with Instant Yeast
Ingredients
- ¾ cup milk
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter or salted butter, cut into chunks (58 grams)
- 3 ¼ cups all-purpose flour, divided use (410 grams)
- 2 ¼ teaspoons instant yeast
- ¼ cup granulated sugar (50 grams)
- ¾ teaspoon salt
- ¼ cup water
- 1 large egg
Filling:
- 1 cup dark brown sugar, packed (200 grams)
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- ½ cup butter, salted (or use unsalted and add pinch of salt) (114 grams)
Icing
- 1 tablespoon butter, melted (14 grams)
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon cream cheese softened (or use heavy cream)
- 1-2 tablespoons milk
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla
Instructions
- Heat the milk in a small saucepan until it bubbles; remove from heat. Mix in butter; stir until melted. Let cool to lukewarm. Alternatively, you can heat the milk in a microwave-safe cup for about 1 minute, stirring every 30 seconds, and add the butter to the hot milk.
- Combine 2 ¼ cup of the flour (280 grams), yeast, sugar and salt in a large mixing bowl; mix well. Stir in water, egg and the milk/butter mixture. Add the remaining flour, ½ cup at a time, stirring well after each addition. When the dough has just pulled together, turn it out onto a floured surface and knead until smooth, about 5 minutes OR just attach the dough hook and knead it in a stand mixer bowl until smooth and elastic (how I do it!).
- Cover the dough with a damp cloth and let rest for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix together brown sugar, cinnamon, softened butter.
- Roll out (or just press) dough into a 12x9 inch rectangle. Spread dough with butter/sugar mixture. Roll up dough (from the short side) and pinch seam to seal. Cut into 10-12 equal size rolls and place cut side up in greased jumbo muffin cups (or in a well greased 9x13 inch pan). Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
- Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes, or until browned. Remove from muffin cups to cool. Serve warm or let cool and frost with icing (or put the icing on while warm and spread it).
- Stir together melted butter and powdered sugar to make a thick pasty like substance. Stir in the cream cheese. Add milk, one tablespoon at a time, stirring until you get a consistency that seems conducive to putting on cinnamon rolls. Stir in the vanilla.
Anna says
Lynn, a packet of yeast is 2 1/4 teaspoons. How did your cinnamon rolls turn out?
Lynn says
First time making cinnamon rolls - Trying my hand st these right now. I too bought a pound package of instant yeast. How much do I use on teaspoons? I used 1.5 teaspoons this time. Thank you!
Anna says
Thanks for the review, Cheryl. Sorry that happened. Next time I make these I will try to troubleshoot and figure out what went wrong. That being said, there's nothing wrong with the tried and true method. I just thought this one was interesting at the time and I liked the results. BTW, did you use instant yeast? I'm wondering if maybe you used regular fast rising yeast rather than instant.
Cheryl says
Having had recent success in making home-made hamburger buns, I thought I'd turn my hand to everyone's have - cinnamon buns. Was VERY disappointed in the physical results from this recipe. Using a muffin pan gave me buns that rose up out of the cups beautifully but when baked rose up even higher and became hollow in the centre, causing the cinnamon filling to drip into the bottom of the cups. I ended up with buns that looked more like Yorkshire Puddings than cinnamon buns. I think next time I'll stick with the tried & true method of using a cake pan. That way, I'll be able to invert the pan onto a plate and the filling will stay intact.
Bianca says
Hi Anna! Just a quick question. What is the equivalent of a .25 ounce packet of instant yeast in, say, teaspoons? I just bought a relatively large pack - it didn't come in packets! Gosh, I hope I bought the right one! Hope this isn't too much to ask!
More power to you! LOVE your blog!
Randi says
Since I use a lot of yeast, I buy the vac sealed bags for 5.50. You get like 50x the amount in the small packets. Its called instant yeast or rapid rise. They're basically the same thing, they dont need to be proofed before adding them to the flour. Regular yeast needs to be proofed in water and some sugar( is that the kind you use). Also, you use 3/4 tsp of instant or rapid rise in place of 1tsp of regular yeast.
Anna says
Randi, maybe I'm making it more confusing. I am referring to "fast rising" yeast when I say instant yeast. Is that the type you use? I always use the type of yeast that comes in small packets, but the type I use is regular rising rather than "fast rising".
Also, this is probably the same recipe you used off allrecipes.com.
Randi says
Just curious, why would you use regular yeast? I like instant so much better. I made a cinn roll recipe from AR, that was baked in a muffin tin. It was 90 min cinnamon rolls. They were good right away, but not too good 1 hr later.
HoneyB says
Looks like you did a great job! Yeast can be touchy, but I love to watch the dough rise and know I was successful (and most of the time I am, but I've been known to mess it up too!)
KAnn says
It's been a long time since I have made yeast breads- yeast doesn't intimidate me, but cinnamon rolls and sticky buns do. These look fabulous! I will tackle cinnamon rolls one of these days!
Cat says
I love cooking with yeast. I even like the smell of it. The outcome isn't that shabby either. Nothing like the aroma of fresh bread or rolls baking. You can't bottle that or put it in a candle either. Back to good ol' home cooking is what I say! I keep my dark bottle is the freezer.
VeggieGirl says
I'm terribly intimidated by baking with yeast, but those cinnamon rolls look awfully delicious!!!
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