This super soft buttery brioche cinnamon roll recipe smothered in tangy vanilla orange cream cheese frosting is the only cinnamon roll recipe you will ever need. The dough is buttery brioche enriched with egg yolks, butter, and milk, and the filling is made of browned butter, which adds an extra nutty flavor. You can either bake these delicious treats the same day or prepare them the day before and bake them in the morning. Ideal for a special weekend morning or even Christmas morning.
Table of Contents
The Ingredients:
Active dry yeast: I’m using dry yeast, which can be mixed without preparing the other ingredients. However, it can be substituted for 20g of fresh yeast.
Egg yolks: the egg yolks are added at room temperature and make the dough fluffy and moist.
Milk: The milk has to be warm (about 37°C or 98,6°F). Use a kitchen thermometer. If the milk is too hot, it destroys the yeast’s activity. Please use whole milk; anything with less fat is like water.
Butter: When mixed into the dough, the butter has to be softened and at room temperature. Butter is life. That’s why I just love baking with brioche dough. 😉
Flour: For this recipe, I’m using bread flour, which, because of the increased protein, adds more texture to the cinnamon brioche buns. If you don’t have bread flour, you can use pizza flour or simple all-purpose flour.
Pinch of salt: I’m always working with unsalted flour, so I’m adding 1/4 tsp salt to the dough. AND… salted butter isn’t very common in Austria, and there is only one brand that sells salted butter.
Browned butter for the frosting: I’m using browned butter for the filling because it’s so much more flavorful. If you don’t want to make brown butter, you can simply use softened butter. But the brown butter is worth that extra work.
Fresh orange zest and orange juice: The fresh orange zest is added to the dough and to the cream cheese glaze. It’s blood orange season right now, so I’m using freshly squeezed blood orange juice in the glaze. Be sure that your oranges are organic.
Vanilla pod: You can’t beat freshly scraped vanilla seeds. Don’t throw away the scraped pod; stick it into a jar with sugar and make vanilla sugar.
Cinnamon: Make sure that the ground cinnamon is fresh and not expired.
Cream Cheese: There are many brands out there. Make sure to buy cream cheese that isn’t too soft. I prefer to buy Philadelphia.
See the recipe card for a full list of ingredients.
How to make soft and buttery cinnamon brioche rolls with vanilla and orange cream cheese frosting.
The enriched dough:
- Firstly, I start mixing the warm milk, sugar, and yeast together in a bowl of a stand mixer with the dough hook attached at a low speed.
- Then I add the egg yolks, butter, salt, orange zest, and 3/4 of the flour and knead for about 6-7 minutes at medium speed to develop the gluten. It will be a sticky dough at first, but no worries—that’s totally fine.
- At last I add the rest of the flour and knead for 5 more minutes.
- The dough is ready when it’s not sticking any longer to the sides of the bowl and you can stretch a little bit of the dough with wet fingers until see through.
- With the help of the bench scraper transfer the dough into an oiled large bowl and cover with plastic wrap . Now starts the first rise.
Very Important. Let the dough rest at a warm place for about 1 hour or double in time. Give the brioche dough time to rest.
Assembling the dough and the filling into delicious brioche cinnamon buns.
- When the dough has doubled in size deflate it on a lightly floured surface.
- Form it into a large rectangular with the help of a rolling pin 30cm X 50cm (12inch X 20inch)
- Spread the filling evenly over the whole surface of the dough with the help of a rubber spatula or an offset spatula .
- Begin to roll the dough evenly into a tight log beginning from the long sight.
- Score the log into 12 equal pieces and cut them with unflavored dental floss or a twine and transfer them into a buttered baking pan leaving some space around each roll.
- Dust the the brioche cinnamon rolls lightly with flour and cover loosely with plastic wrap again.
Now you have 2 baking Options.
Option 1: make the rolls and bake at the same day.
If you want to make and bake these delicious brioche cinnamon rolls all in one day then let the cut cinnamon rolls rise a second time for about 45 minutes or until doubled in size and puffy .
After that second rising in the baking pan I lightly pour some heavy cream on top and bake until golden brown.
While the rolls are baking and the house starts to smell like a bakery start with making the frosting.
When the rolls are baked and out of the oven smear the still warm cinnamon buns with the glaze.
Best enjoyed warm and with people you love . ❤️
Option 2 : Overnight brioche cinnamon rolls
I love to prepare those rolls the night before . After cutting the rolls and transferring them into the baking pan I cover the rolls loosely with plastic wrap and transfer them into the fridge .
There the cinnamon rolls rise slower overnight and they develop more flavor this way.
The next morning I transfer the baking pan out of the fridge and leave the rolls for about 45 minutes at warm draft free place.
When the rolls warmed up to room temperature I pour some cream of them and bake and frost them afterwards like I would have done when baking at the same day.
This Option is ideal when you have guests or family you want to surprise with an extra special Breakfast treat. I love to make them for Christmas morning or when it’s someones birthday.
What I love about these gooey buttery homemade cinnamon rolls.
- Firstly cinnamon is one of my favorite seasonings. I could add cinnamon to ALMOST everything. Cinnamon always reminds me of my childhood . My mom and I used to craft Christmas ornaments including cinnamon sticks.
- The dough is absolutely perfect in flavor and texture .Fluffy and buttery. Especially with the added orange zest.
- Nobody ever said to me that they don’t like cinnamon rolls. Everybody loves them und you can’t ever go wrong with these baked goods.
- The recipe is easy to follow along and it only takes 20 minutes of prepping time.
Substitutions.
Fresh yeast instead of instant yeast or dry yeast: It’s really no problem to use fresh yeast but there is one more added step at the beginning. Start with mixing the fresh yeast, warm milk and sugar together in small bowl . Cover loosely and let it stand until the yeast mixture gets foamy and starts to rise.
Orange glaze instead of Vanilla Orange cream cheese glaze: If you simply prefer a lighter more runny glaze instead of a cream cheese frosting jus mix together a little bit of fresh orange juice and enough powdered sugar until its your kind of thick glaze.
Vanilla extract instead of fresh scraped vanilla seeds: If you don’t have a vanilla pod at hand than of course you can use 1 tbsp of vanilla extract instead.
If you don’t tolerate milk products substitute the butter and heavy cream for a plant based option. You can substitute the milk for a plant based milk as well nut make sure that it’s a barista plant based milk. These products are thicker in texture and more similar to full fat milk.
Tips for making this recipe:
- If the yeast dough isn’t rising at all even after 1 1/2 hours of resting time throw the dough away and start anew. Take a lookout your yeast and make sure that the yeast is not expired.
- Time ! Let dough do it’s thing and give him the time it needs for doubling in size. This is important for the first rise and the second rise.
- Before cutting the log into rolls cut 1 cm off the ends with a serrated knife and discard. This way you make sure that all buns are equally even in size.
- Use a kitchen scale: I always write my ingredients in metrics. All the ingredients are exactly measured which is very important when making any kind of bread.
Storage:
Store the buns in an airtight container in your fridge. Reheat the rolls as needed in your microwave for a couple of seconds.
Freeze option:
The brioche cinnamon rolls can be frozen right after the log gets cut into even rolls. For that place the unbaked rolls on a plate and quick frost them for 45 minutes. After that transfer them into plastic logs and freeze for up to 6 months.
Thaw them before baking.
You will fall in love with these fluffy buttery brioche rolls immediately, promised ! Did you make this recipe? Let me know and tag me on Instagram. Or leave me some kind words and a star rating. I will be always thankful for that 😉
Warm hugs Nina
You may be interested in these recipes too:
- The best homemade Mother’s Day gift: brioches hearts
- Chocolate overnight oats with Dalgona Coffee Cream
- Babka Bread filled with Blueberry jam
- Apricot galette with cream cheese frosting
Soft Buttery Brioche Cinnamon Rolls (overnight option)
Course: Breakfast, DessertCuisine: American12
20
minutes30
minutes611
kcal1
hour30
minutes2
hours20
minutesThis recipe for super soft buttery cinnamon brioche rolls smothered in tangy vanilla orange cream cheese frosting is the only cinnamon roll recipe you will ever need. It has an overnight baking option too.
Keep the screen of your device on
Ingredients
- Soft Brioche Cinnamon rolls
7 g 7 dry active yeast or 20g fresh yeast
350 ml 350 milk warm 37°C
60 g 60 sugar
680 g 680 white bread flour or all purpose flour
3 3 egg yolks room temperature
60 g 60 butter melted
1 tbsp 1 orange zest zest from 1 orange
50 ml 50 heavy cream
- Brown butter Cinnamon sugar filling
225 g 225 brown sugar
2 tbsp 2 ground cinnamon
140 g 140 butter if you don't brown your butter you'll only need 120g butter softened.
1 tsp 1 vanilla sugar
- Vanilla Orange Cream Cheese frosting
180g g 180g Cream Cheese
50 g 50 Butter softened
1 1 Vanilla pod seeds of 1 vanilla pod, or use 1 tbsp vanilla sugar or 1 1/2 tsp vanilla flavor
Orange Zest and juice from 1 medium sized organic from 1 orange
180 g 180 white sugar
Directions
- Start with browning the butter, this way it can solidify until you need it for the cinnamon brown sugar filling-
- sof butter brioche dough recipe
- Firstly start to mix the warm milk, sugar, and yeast together in a bowl of a stand mixer with the dough hook attached on low speed
- Then add the egg yolks, butter, salt, orange zest and 3/4 of the flour and knead for about 6-7 minutes at medium speed . It will be a sticky dough at first but no worries thats totally fine.
- At last add the rest of the flour and knead for 5 more minutes. Start mixing on low until the flour is absorbed, then mix on medium high for another minute.
- The dough is ready when it’s not sticking any longer to the sides of the bowl and you can stretch a little bit of the dough with wet fingers until see through.
- With the help of the bench scraper transfer the dough into an oiled large bowl and cover with plastic wrap .
- Let the dough rest at a warm place for about 1 hour or double in time
- When the dough has doubled in size deflate it on a lightly floured surface.
- Form it into a large rectangular with the help of a rolling pin 30cm X 50cm (12inch X 20inch)
- Spread the filling evenly over the whole surface of the dough with the help of a rubber spatula or an offset spatula .
- Begin to roll the dough evenly into a tight log beginning from the long sight.
- Score the log into 12 equal pieces and cut them with unflavored dental floss or a twine and transfer them into a buttered baking pan leaving some space around each roll.
- Dust the the brioche cinnamon rolls lightly with flour and cover loosely with plastic wrap again.
- Let the rolls rise for 45 more minutes.
- When the rolls has Rosen start preheating the oven.
- Preheat the oven to 170°Celsius fan (350°F)
- After that second rising in the baking pan lightly pour some heavy cream on top and bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.
- While the rolls are baking and the house starts to smell like a bakery start with making the frosting.
- Brown butter cinnamon sugar filling
- in medium sized bowl mix together all the ingredients with the help of an electric mixer or your stand mixer with the whisk attached.
- Vanilla Orange cream cheese frosting
- While the cinnamon rolls bake, combine the ingredients in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment (or with a hand mixer) and beat until smooth and fluffy.
- Allow the cinnamon rolls to cool for about five minutes after removing them from the oven, then spread the cream cheese frosting evenly over the tops.
- Serve hot or warm.
Equipment
- stand mixer (1)
- Rolling Pin (1)
- offset spatula (1 )
- dough scraper (1)
- rubber spatula (1)
Nutrition Facts
- Calories: 611kcal
- Carbohydrates: 86g
- Protein: 9g
- Fat: 26g
- Saturated Fat: 16g
- Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g
- Monounsaturated Fat: 7g
- Trans Fat: 1g
- Cholesterol: 117mg
- Sodium: 203mg
- Potassium: 177mg
- Fiber: 2g
- Sugar: 41g
- Vitamin A: 903IU
- Vitamin C: 1mg
- Calcium: 104mg
- Iron: 3mg
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