Everyone goes crazy for cinnamon rolls. The gooey center that has the little bit of spiciness from the cinnamon and the sweetness of the glaze? It’s perfect. The dough is traditionally soft and chewy and honestly one of the best parts. The fact is, however, that gluten free cinnamon rolls can be, well… not great. If you get them frozen, they are quite difficult to cook correctly without a lot of effort. They become soggy in the microwave but crunchy in the oven… it seems like there really is no right way to do it.
Most gluten free bakeries, if they have cinnamon rolls on the menu, know how to really knock it out of the park and make a delicious cinnamon roll. But how accessible is a gluten free bakery? Sometimes you just want to eat a cinnamon roll at home without having to drive to the nearest city.
In keeping with that spirit, I decided to make gluten free cinnamon rolls with frozen puff pastry dough. It’s easy, simple, and relatively fool proof.
Cinnamon rolls consist of three main components: the dough, the filling, and the glaze. And without having to worry about making a dough from scratch, the recipe becomes much simpler.
The cinnamon filling consists of three ingredients: brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon. The list of ingredients for the glaze is also short and sweet: butter, powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla extract. Honestly, once the puff pastry is thawed, the recipe takes less than a half an hour. So simple, and so worth it for the final product.
While using puff pastry can give the rolls a different texture than your classic cinnamon roll, I tend to like it. It becomes a little more crunchy on the outside which is honestly, a win-win for me. The light crispiness on the outside combined with the doughy center offers a new take on the classic cinnamon roll.
And although this recipe isn’t exactly the best thing for your health (lots of butter, lots of sugar) it is definitely “worth the calories” (to quote Pru from the Great British Bake Off).
Start by gathering your ingredients for the filling and the dough:
The next step is to cream together the butter and brown sugar. I used a electric mixer, but if you prefer, you can do it by hand. It is important to note here that the butter MUST be at room temperature.
Then, add about 1/4 of the cinnamon and mix, then repeat till you get one homogenous mixture. It should look like this:
Next, construct the cinnamon rolls. Dust your surface with flour and prepare your puff pastry as it says on the box. Then, evenly spread the cinnamon mixture on the sheet of puff pastry, roll, and cut into pieces about 1 + inches thick.
Then, bake in the oven for 20 – 25 minutes at the temperature on the puff pastry box. You won’t be able to see any golden brown pastry once they are done, but the cinnamon mixture inside should have partially melted and the dough will have puffed up.
I made the icing while the rolls were baking. Basically, it’s just alternating adding the sugar and milk and whisking really hard until its all combined.
The final product is delicious… so, here’s the recipe!
Gluten Free Cinnamon Rolls
Ingredients
For the Filling
- 1/2 cup brown sugar (light or dark works)
- 1/2 cup softened butter (or partially melted. I'm impatient so I melted the butter for 30 seconds)
- 2 tbsp cinnamon
For the Glaze
- 2 tbsp melted butter
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 2 tbsp cream cheese (optional, but without it the glaze is pretty sweet)
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 4 tbsp milk or cream
The dough
- 1 package puff pastry dough (the gluten free one I used came in rolls, I only used one roll)
Instructions
- Defrost or thaw your puff pastry dough and prep according to the directions on the box (ie: sprinkle with flour, additional folds, preheating the oven, etc).
- Combine the softened butter and brown sugar in a large mixing bowl and cream with an electric mixer – (I used hand held).
- Then, add around 1/4 of the cinnamon and mix until combined.
- Repeat step three until all the cinnamon is combined into the filling.
- Flatten out puff pastry dough into a square.
- Using on offset spatula, spread all of the filling over the square of puff pastry evenly.
- Tightly roll the square starting from the bottom. It is easiest to roll away from you, this will ensure the neatest roll possible.
- Using a dough cutter, cut the log of cinnamon rolls into one inch pieces.
- Coat the inside of a small square or round glass pan with butter and add the cinnamon rolls however they can fit in (it won't look like a perfect array, but that makes more more cracks and crevices to hold the glaze).
- Bake for 20 – 25 minutes at the temperature recommended on your puff pastry dough box.
- When the pastry has puffed up and the filling has gotten melted and gooey, remove from the oven and flip rolls onto a plate.
- Let cool for around 10 minutes, then drizzle with glaze and serve.
- Enjoy! It's kind of hard to pick these up with your hands, so I shared with my family of 4. We all got our own forks and just took bites!