Colossal Cinnamon Roll

When it comes to a warm, gooey cinnamon roll, who doesn’t want to dive into one that is as big as your head?One can be content with a small, single serve roll, but why not “roll” out the red carpet for yourself or house guests and showcase the epitome of breakfast pastries.

This recipe was created by Sally at Sally’s Baking Addiction. I’ve been following her on Instagram and she recently issued a challenge to try your hand at creating this colossal pan of deliciousness. When presented with this challenge, I accepted it with vigor and a full backing from my cinnamon roll loving husband. He told me if it took multiple tries, he would gladly eat any and all failures or successes.

So let’s get this challenge rolling! The best part of this recipe, is that it mostly consists of pantry staples; flour, sugar, salt, a packet of yeast, cinnamon, vanilla extract and then a few perishables; milk, butter and an egg. And if you’re feeling fancy, some cream cheese for a delicious frosting. Pretty dang simple!

Now, if you’re feeling afraid of making your own dough, you do have the option of buying frozen sweet dough. This would be an easy substitution, and don’t get me wrong, this crossed my mind. But remember, I was here for the challenge, so no shortcuts. Also, there is just something so satisfying about kneading the dough by hand. And in all honesty, this is a super simple dough recipe.

Here’s how the dough goes together

• Whisk together the flour, sugar, salt and yeast
• Add melted butter, warm milk and egg to the dry ingredients and mix together until sticky dough forms
• Turn out dough onto lightly floured surface and knead the dough
• Cover & let the dough rest for 30 minutes

Now it’s time to roll out the dough. The desired shape is a rectangle with dimensions of approximately 12 inches by 15 inches. Now if you’re like me, rolling out the dough into a distinguishable shape is a difficult task. So, I just rolled to my heart’s content and then cleaned it up by using a pizza cutter to get it to the suggested dimensions.

Once you’re satisfied with your rectangular shaped dough, it’s time to butter it up. Spread softened butter over the dough and then sprinkle on the cinnamon sugar. Or pour the sugar on; no judgement here! In my book, there’s no such thing as too much sugar.

Grab that pizza cutter and cut the dough length wise into 4-6 strips. Who knew that all those promotional pizza cutters would come in clutch for activities besides creating pizza slices.

Rolling right along, let’s start forming our cinnamon roll. There are 2 ways to roll the roll; either roll it up like 1 gigantic roll on the counter, or roll one piece and then gracefully coil the remaining pieces around the first roll in the baking dish.

At this point, the dough needs to rise until it has doubled in size. This typically takes about 1-2 hours. Be sure that you cover the dough so that it doesn’t dry out.

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Now, get that dough into an oven preheated to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and bake it for 30 minutes until it is golden brown.

While the roll cools, mix up the frosting. For the simple, classic frosting mix milk, vanilla extract and powdered sugar until combined and drizzle over the top of the roll. For a more decadent frosting; mix softened cream cheese, butter, vanilla extract, powdered sugar and a dash of milk until combined and spread over the roll.

It’s finally time to dive into this “big as your head” cinnamon roll! Grab a cup of coffee or glass of orange juice and relish your beautiful baked good.

So Sally, thanks for the challenge! This is a tried and true recipe and I’ll keep this one in my back pocket for future use. Full disclosure: I made this recipe twice-one flop and one success, but even my flop was a success, just more gooey/doughy. Perfect for the lovers of slightly undercooked rolls.

Follow Sally’s Baking Addiction on Instagram @Sallysbakeblog. Find her original Giant Cinnamon Roll Cake post here.