The Only Cinnamon​ Roll Recipe You Will Ever Need

I come from a long line of people who are really great cooks! Both my mom and dad are great. My grandmothers, although from completely different cultures (Texas on my dad’s side and Ukraine on my mom’s), were both masters of their respective recipe boxes. But, the guru of all things home cookin’ is my great-grandmother (my dad’s mom’s mom), Maude Swaringen. I don’t think there’s anything she doesn’t know about making great food! She is so much fun to be around. She’s always smiling and laughing and is so quick to zing you…in the nicest way. She’s one of the cutest people I know and loves her family. She and my great-grandfather have been married almost 70 years! What an awesome example for so many generations. I’m always so happy when I can share one of my Great-Granny’s recipes.

Cinnamon rolls have always been a BIG DEAL in my house. For as long as I can remember, any time my dad would ask, “Do ya’ll want cinnamon rolls for breakfast?” there was a resounding cheer throughout the house. These cinnamon rolls always meant two things: (1) a super tasty breakfast and (2) time together with family cooking, talking, laughing, and dancing to whatever playlist we had on that day. My dad would get out all the ingredients that he learned from his mom…that she learned from her mom…and we would get started.

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Notes About The Recipe!

I’m gonna be honest with you. These cinnamon rolls require a bit more of a time commitment than some of my other recipes, but it is SO worth it. This might not be what you turn to on a busy Monday morning. But, it very well could be your favorite Saturday morning indulgence. And, once you make it a few times, you’ll find yourself whipping these things out faster and faster.

Dough

I have marble countertops at my house and those are great for working with dough. You can just throw some flour down on the countertop and get to work. But, for this recipe, I actually recommend putting down a pastry cloth. (You’ll see why in a bit.)

Dough consistency is a pretty tricky thing. If the dough is really crumbly, add a bit more milk. If the dough is really sticky, shake in a bit more flour. Generally, I add milk until the dough is sticky and then add just enough flour to make the dough nice and smooth.

Margarine

Before we start combining ingredients, it is really important that you get your margarine out of the fridge. When it comes time to use the margarine, you want it to be nice and soft so you can spread it. Margarine straight from the fridge is hard to spread and will damage your dough.

The first time I made cinnamon rolls by myself, I asked my dad how much margarine to use. His answer…”Enough”. This is one of those times in the kitchen when you have to let your eyes do the measuring. Every time you make cinnamon rolls, the amount of margarine needed is going to be a bit different.

If you like a more moist cinnamon roll add more margarine. For a drier roll, add less. Make sure you spread the margarine all the way to the very edges of the dough. We want the whole thing to be tasty!

Dust your pan!

One of the easiest ways to ruin a super pretty batch of cinnamon rolls is to have them stick to the pan during baking. Some non-stick pans or stoneware pans have less of an issue with this, but I’ve yet to find a pan that completely eliminated sticking. But, there are several ways to prevent this. Cooking spray is a popular option and very easy to use. Personally, I feel like cooking sprays add something foreign, something artificial, to the taste of my foods so I try to avoid them as often as possible. For cinnamon rolls, the best way to prevent sticking is to dust your pan.

Get a paper towel and wrap it around your first two fingers. Dip that into your tub of shortening and get just a bit of shortening on the paper towel. Spread a very, very thin layer of shortening over all of the interior surfaces of your baking pan. Make sure you cover every little bit! Once the pan is covered with shortening, put about 1/8 cup of flour in the pan. Hold the pan with one hand and gently hit the pan with your other hand to get that flour moving around. I would recommend doing this over the sink or a trash can. Because you want to get flour in all the corners and all the way to the edge of the pan, it is inevitable that some of the flour will escape.

A well dusted pan is a beautiful thing! Dusting the pan is also one of my favorite parts of the baking process. I’ll never forget the sound of my grandmother’s wedding ring clanging against a pan she was dusting. I always knew that meant we were in for a treat! So, pound away on those pans and send out the signal to your family that something tasty is on the way.

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Crunch

Be careful not to chop the nuts too small as that takes away from the great crunchiness. But, don’t leave them too big or you might break your dough in the next step. There is a Goldilocks zone with the pecans…not too big and not too small.

The Only Cinnamon Roll Recipe You Will Ever Need

Author: Ana Smith Prep Time: 40 minutes Cook Time: 35 minutes Total time: 75 minutes Yields 16ish rolls

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
• Margarine (I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter)
• 1/3 cup Shortening (Crisco)
• 1 cup Milk
• Cinnamon
• Sugar
• 1 cup chopped Pecans

Directions

The Dough

In a large bowl, combine the flour and shortening. You’ll want to mash the shortening into the four as thoroughly as possible. I have found a potato masher to work really, really well for this. (If you do not have a potato masher, you can use a fork.) Once the flour and shortening are well mixed, add the milk and stir.

Dust the pastry cloth with flour and put your dough onto the cloth. Begin to spread the dough out slowly with your hands. You’ll come across spots in the dough that are sticky. That’s okay! Just dust that spot with flour and continue spreading. Turn the dough over often to keep it from sticking to the pastry cloth. You will probably need to dust the pastry cloth with flour several times during the process. It’s really important that the dough does not stick to the pastry cloth so feel free to add flour to the cloth liberally.

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Once you’ve worked most of the stickiness out of the dough, grab your rolling pin and put some elbow grease into it. Roll the dough to about an inch thick and flip it over. Roll it out a bit more and flip it again. Pretty soon, you’re going to have a piece of dough that is too big to flip without tearing it. That’s perfect! Final dough thickness depends on your taste. If you like more dough in each bite, leave your dough thicker. If you want more sweet goodness, roll it out a big thinner. But, make sure you don’t go too thin or the dough will tear when you start rolling it!

Spread The Love

Once you’ve got your dough rolled out to the desired thickness, the magic begins. Since your margarine has been sitting out for a bit, it is now softer and much more spreadable. Start adding dollops of margarine to the dough. Using a spatula spread the dollops of margarine out on the dough until you have a layer of margarine over the entire piece of dough.

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Sugar and Spice

Now, grab your cinnamon and start shaking! I like lots of cinnamon so I cover the margarine with a pretty thick layer. Once you’re satisfied with the cinnamon level, start adding sugar. I’ll be honest…I put LOTS of sugar on my cinnamon rolls because it is so, so good. This isn’t a health food recipe or something I would eat every day so when I spoil myself with these, I really want to enjoy it. The sugar should thoroughly cover the cinnamon on the dough. Again, this is an area where your eyes will have to guide you. There’s no set amount of sugar that makes this recipe perfect. Some people like it sweeter. Some don’t. For me, it’s better to err on the side of more sugar than less.

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One last step before we (literally) wrap everything up. I love food with lots of texture. The tastiest way I’ve found to do that with this recipe is to add either pecans or walnuts. I chop 1 cup of pecans into small pieces and then spread them out by hand on the dough.

Rolling in the dough

To this point, we haven’t made anything but a huge sugar and cinnamon pizza. It’s time to make our work actually look like a cinnamon roll…and now you’ll see why I love to make this on the pastry cloth. Without touching the dough, grab the side of the pastry cloth closest to you and fold one end of the dough over about half an inch. Keep using the cloth to fold the dough over itself. Keep doing this until your dough is rolled up.

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Okay, now stand back and admire this thing of beauty! 🙂

Slicing

Some people prefer to take the roll as is, put it in the pan, and bake it just like that. I like to take one more step before baking. Using the largest butcher knife we have in the kitchen, I cut the roll into pieces about an inch and a half thick and transfer those pieces into my pan. I love seeing the rolled up dough and cinnamon in my pan! It’s so pretty!

Okay, this part is REALLY IMPORTANT! Don’t just cut the roll and move the cut pieces with your hands. Use the knife to move the piece to the pan. This ensures that all of the insides of the cinnamon stay inside the roll. It took me several times to learn this, but if you use your hands to move the pieces, you will lose most of your sugar and cinnamon on the way from the pastry cloth to the pan.

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Put the pieces right next to each other in the pan. I try to use a pan that is just big enough to fit all of my cinnamon roll pieces. I’ve found that using bigger pans leaves lots of empty space where sugar can run when it melts. And sugar in open spaces always burns.

Baking

Place your pan in an over preheated to 375 degrees. Set your timer for 30 minutes and grab your favorite magazine. In about 20 minutes, you’re going to start smelling something so good it will be hard for you to keep reading. Check on your cinnamon rolls when your timer goes off. They probably won’t be quite ready yet, but this is where you have to know how your oven cooks. From this point on, I would check on your cinnamon rolls through the oven window every few minutes. Your cinnamon rolls should be a golden brown on top and completely cooked all the way through.

That’s it! You just made a breakfast that will soon make you famous amoungst your friends and family. Your kids will ask you to make this for their birthday breakfast. Your friends at church will request this every time there is a church breakfast. Coworkers…well…I’m not sure I would even share your cinnamon rolls with them because they will insist that you make a lot of these and make them often.

Leave me a comment below with your results! Did you make any changes that made these even better? Do share!