Nothing says comfort on a winter morning like a warm tray of freshly baked cinnamon rolls — and, while it can take more time, bypassing the canned dough in favor of your own scratch-made sweet treats can be a fun experience with a delicious result.
“Even a beginner can make cinnamon rolls,” said Nancy LaRoche of Cooking Up a Storm, a homestead business based in Goffstown that specializes in made-to-order baked goods. “There are different areas you can also be flexible in to suit your own tastes.”
From the filling ingredients to the manner in which you add your icing, local bakers share some of their best tips for making your own homemade cinnamon rolls.
Rolling in the dough
Baking cinnamon rolls starts with a basic dough using ingredients you likely already have in your kitchen, including milk, eggs, sugar, all-purpose flour and butter. Maria Bares, owner of The Baker’s Hands in Deerfield, said working with each of your ingredients at room temperature can have an effect on how quickly the dough will rise, whether or not you’re using yeast. A flour with a high protein content also helps to better produce a much fluffier dough.
“If you have cold eggs or cold milk right out of the fridge, then that’s going to slow the rising process down,” she said. “You also want to try to handle [the dough] as little as possible, because the more you do, the tougher it’s going to be.”
Letting your dough sit for a couple of hours after you’ve mixed the ingredients together, Bares said, will increase its volume and better enable you to incorporate your filling mixture. Colder temperatures will slow down the rising of the dough, so you can also cover it with plastic wrap and pop it in the refrigerator until you’re ready to work with it.
LaRoche said she likes to spread her dough out into a rectangular shape and gently pinch its edges before adding the filling. Spreading an even amount of filling across the perimeter of the dough, as well as rolling it up slowly and tightly, can help your rolls bake more evenly.
Prepping for the oven
A typical cinnamon roll filling, to be spread onto your leavened dough before it is rolled, will often contain a mixture of brown sugar, cinnamon and butter. Jenn Stone-Grimaldi, co-owner of Crosby Bakery in Nashua, said it’s especially important to incorporate a good-quality cinnamon.
“If you have a jar of cinnamon in your cabinet and you don’t remember when you bought it, you should probably go out and buy a new one,” she said. “The freshness and quality of the cinnamon really makes a difference in the final product.”
Softening your butter before mixing it into the cinnamon and sugar can better help to incorporate the flavors, according to Joy Martello of Étagère in Amherst. You can also add a drizzle of heavy cream on them before baking for a more moist and gooey texture.
You can even get creative with the fillings if you want to. Jacky Levine of It’s All Good in the Kitchen, a gluten-free bakery in Salem, which offers gluten-free cinnamon rolls to order on Saturdays, said she’s experimented with raspberry compote cinnamon rolls. LaRoche said she has added ingredients like walnuts, raisins, orange zest, cardamom, ginger and even Nutella.
“There’s an infinite variety [of ingredient options]. You can go to town really with anything that floats your boat,” she said.
From here, you can cut out your individual rolls using a properly sharpened serrated knife, or you can achieve this using a strand of unflavored dental floss — yes, dental floss. Simply wrap the floss around the dough and pull as though you were tying a knot.
“It sounds weird, but dental floss ensures a nice clean cut, which is key to getting those perfect swirls you want,” Bares said. “If you try to use a dull knife, it’s just going to squish the dough.”
You can use a baking pan or cookie sheet, or even a muffin tin. Bares said she likes to use a kitchen scale to evenly weigh each rolled dough piece, leaving a little bit of space in between each one once the rolls are placed on the pan. As an optional step to aid in the browning of the dough, you can add an egg wash to the top of your rolls.
The icing on the cake
Depending on your oven and how many you’re baking at once, cinnamon rolls can take as little as 15 to 20 minutes or as long as 30 to 35 minutes. While they’re in the oven, you can make your own icing to go on top using just ingredients like butter, sugar and milk.
“That’s another area where it’s flexible,” LaRoche said. “My favorite is a coffee maple glaze, [which is] brewed coffee, maple extract, maple syrup and powdered sugar.”
Bares said she prefers a cream cheese-based icing, which she packages separately with all of her cinnamon roll orders. Vanilla and freeze-dried strawberry powder are other optional ingredients.
Whether you lightly drizzle or spread your icing over your rolls is a matter of preference, as is adding it while they are still hot or after they’ve cooled.
“If you put it on while they’re still hot, then it will sort of melt and seep into the layers of the rolls. Some people prefer that if they don’t like a real thick coating of icing,” LaRoche said.
But if you’d rather be a little more meticulous with your icing spreading, Bares said all you need to do is let your rolls cool for five minutes before applying it. Your finished rolls will keep in plastic wrap for a few days to a week, depending on whether they are frosted.
“I would say that unfrosted rolls stay good for about three to four days at room temperature, and then about a week in the fridge,” she said.
Swedish traditions
It’s unclear exactly where the first cinnamon roll originated, but the sweet treat is a long-standing tradition in several Nordic countries, especially in Sweden. Jenny Lewis of Brookline and her father, David Schur, are the owners of Hulda’s Swedish Baked Goods, a baking business honoring the legacy of Lewis’s maternal great-grandmother Hulda, who immigrated to the United States from southeastern Sweden in 1902. Hulda owned and operated a bakery in Chicago, where she made traditional Swedish baked goods like kanelbullar, or cinnamon rolls (“kanel” means cinnamon and “bullar” or “bulle” means bun or roll, according to Lewis).
The dough used for Hulda’s cinnamon rolls, Lewis said, is the same basic yeast bread also used for their dinner rolls and cardamom loaf. Kanelbullar are characterized by their braid-like texture, made by twisting multiple strands of dough across one another before the rolls go in the oven. They are also known for containing cardamom and not normally having an icing on top.
“If you use some of the cinnamon rolls you might buy at the mall, like at Cinnabon, as a point of reference then ours are a lot smaller,” Schur said. “It’s more the size of a dinner roll in an individual serving, so if you eat two you’re not going to feel terrible about yourself.”
Schur said cinnamon rolls in Sweden are also often enjoyed during a social tradition known as fika, which is popular all over the country and continues to be a major part of its culture.
“When somebody says ‘fika,’ it just means a social gathering or get-together. It’s a little bit like a mid-morning or mid-afternoon coffee break at work or at home,” he said. “You’re enjoying a cup of coffee or tea and in this case kanelbullar, or maybe cookies or another treat that goes with it.”
Make your own cinnamon rolls
Several of the sources for this story — including Nancy LaRoche of Cooking Up a Storm in Goffstown and Maria Bares of The Baker’s Hands in Deerfield — pointed to King Arthur Baking Co.’s products or recipes when it comes to making cinnamon rolls. The company, which sells flours and other ingredients and has a school which holds baking classes in Vermont, recently picked the “Perfectly Pillowy Cinnamon Rolls” recipe as its 2021 Recipe of the Year; LaRoche, who tried this recipe out the day before her interview with us, reported that it indeed produced soft pillow-like rolls.
This version of yeasted dough cinnamon rolls starts with making a tangzhong, which is a blend of flour and milk that is warmed in a saucepan before being put in the mixing bowl with the rest of the flour and other ingredients added, the website explains. This technique “pre-gelatinizes the flour’s starches, which makes them more able to retain liquid — thus enhancing the resulting loaf’s softness and shelf life,” according to the recipe’s notes. The recipe follows an otherwise standard pattern of two rises (one of the enriched dough, one of the rolls after they’re assembled).
King Arthur has other takes on cinnamon rolls. There is a more straight-forward Cinnamon Rolls yeasted recipe, sans tangzhong.
If you’ve kept your sourdough starter alive beyond those first yeast-less weeks of the pandemic, they have a Sourdough Cinnamon Buns recipe that uses one cup of ripe starter along with a small amount of yeast. This recipe has a longer rise time for the dough and the assembled rolls.
For cinnamon rolls right now (-ish), King Arthur also has an Instant Gratification Cinnamon Roll recipe, where the dough’s rising agent is baking soda and Bakewell Cream for a kind of soda-bread cinnamon roll which doesn’t require a rise time.
Beyond these basic rolls, King Arthur has gluten-free and keto friendly recipes as well as variations to the dough (brioche, for example) and flavors. Notes on the recipes mentioned here explain how to assemble the rolls and then refrigerate overnight so that you can have hot fresh cinnamon rolls in the morning without waking up at 3 a.m. Find these recipes (which offer photos to help with some of the tricky steps and baking notes about techniques and ingredients) at kingarthurbaking.com.
Where to get locally-made cinnamon rolls
This list includes bakeries and homestead businesses in southern New Hampshire where you can order cinnamon rolls. Some have them more regularly than others — contact them directly for the most up-to-date availability.
• The Baker’s Hands (find them on Facebook @thebakershands) is a homestead business based in Deerfield that offers a variety of baked goods made to order, including cinnamon rolls.
• The Bakeshop on Kelley Street (171 Kelley St., Manchester, 624-3500, thebakeshoponkelleystreet.com) usually takes orders for cinnamon rolls on weekends and will sometimes have limited availability in the pastry case during the week.
• Bearded Baking Co. (819 Union St., Manchester, 647-7150, beardedbaking.com) has a daily offering of cinnamon rolls in its pastry case.
• Benson’s Bakery & Cafe (203 Central St., Hudson, 718-8683, bensonsbakeryandcafe.com) takes special orders for cinnamon rolls and will often have a limited amount in their pastry case.
• Bite Me Kupcakez (4 Mound Court, Merrimack, 674-4459, bitemekupcakez.com) features a variety of gluten-free pastries and baked goods, including cinnamon rolls.
• Blue Loon Bakery (12 Lovering Lane, New London, 526-2892, blueloonbakery.com) takes orders for cinnamon rolls and pecan sticky buns on Saturdays and Sundays.
• Buckley’s Bakery & Cafe (436 Daniel Webster Hwy., Merrimack, 262-5929; 9 Market Place, Hollis, 465-5522; buckleysbakerycafe.com) will sometimes have a limited amount of cinnamon rolls in their pastry case. Special orders of at least a dozen cinnamon rolls can be placed with a 48-hour notice.
• Cooking Up a Storm (cookingupastorm-nh.com, find them on Facebook @cookingupastorm.nh) is a homestead business based in Goffstown that offers a variety of baked goods made to order, including cinnamon rolls.
• Crosby Bakery (51 E. Pearl St., Nashua, 882-1851, crosbybakerynh.com) has a daily offering of cinnamon rolls in its pastry case.
• The Crust & Crumb Baking Co. (126 N. Main St., Concord, 219-0763, thecrustandcrumb.com) takes special orders for cinnamon rolls, typically on the weekends.
• Culture (75 Mont Vernon St., Milford, 249-5011, culturebreadandsandwich.com) will often have a limited offering of fresh baked cinnamon rolls in its pastry case.
• Dutch Epicure Bakery (141 Route 101A, Amherst, 879-9400, dutchepicurebakery.com) has a limited amount of cinnamon rolls available every day until they sell out. Larger custom orders can also be placed.
• Étagère (114B Route 101A, Amherst, 417-3121, sipshopsoak.com) features a rotating selection of homemade baked goods out of its pastry case, including cinnamon rolls, pecan sticky buns and stuffed cardamom buns.
• Hulda’s Swedish Baked Goods (swedishbakers.com) is a homestead business based in Brookline that specializes in Swedish baked goods, including kanelbullar, or cinnamon rolls with cardamom. Hulda’s also appears at the Milford Farmers Market in the summer.
• It’s All Good in the Kitchen (184 N. Broadway, Salem, 458-7434, itsallgoodgf.com) takes orders for fresh baked gluten-free cinnamon rolls that are available for pickup on Saturdays.
• Klemm’s Bakery (29 Indian Rock Road, Windham, 437-8810, klemmsbakery.com) offers fresh baked cinnamon rolls out of its pastry case daily, or you can special order them for pickup.
• Sarno’s Sweets (416 Daniel Webster Hwy., Suite E, Merrimack, 261-3791, sarnosweets.com) accepts specialty orders for cinnamon rolls.
• Wild Orchid Bakery (484 S. Main St., Manchester, 935-7338, wildorchidbakery.com) offers a rotating selection of freshly baked pastries, including cinnamon rolls.
Featured photo: Cinnamon Roll by Nancy LaRoche of Cooking Up a Storm. Courtesy photo.
