Christmas morning cinnamon rolls, mixed the night before so the kitchen smells of them before anyone is awake.
An enriched yeast dough is the one Christmas recipe that demands something of you the night before.
The dough is mixed and left to rise slowly overnight in a cool place, then rolled, filled with butter, sugar and cinnamon, cut, and given a short second rise while the oven comes up. By the time the household is properly awake the kitchen smells of it, which is most of the reason for making them.
Cinnamon was imported and used sparingly through the year. On Christmas morning, the usual restraint was set aside.
Christmas Morning Cinnamon Rolls
MAKES
12 buns
OVEN
350°F / 175°C / gas 4
TIME
25 to 30 minutes, plus overnight rise
Ingredients
- For the dough
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- 2¼ teaspoons active dry yeast (1 packet)
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1½ teaspoons salt
- ¾ cup whole milk, warmed to about 110°F
- 2 large eggs
- ⅓ cup unsalted butter, softened
- For the filling
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, softened
- ½ cup packed brown sugar
- 1½ tablespoons ground cinnamon
- For the glaze
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 to 3 tablespoons milk
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
Method
- Stir a pinch of the sugar into the warm milk, sprinkle the yeast over the surface, and leave 5 to 10 minutes until foamy.
- In a large bowl, combine flour, the remaining sugar, and salt.
- Add the yeast mixture, the eggs, and the softened butter. Stir until a rough dough forms.
- Turn onto a floured surface and knead 8 to 10 minutes, until smooth and elastic. The dough should be soft but not sticky.
- Place in a greased bowl, cover, and leave in a warm place until doubled, about 1 to 1½ hours.
- Punch down and roll on a floured surface into a rectangle about 16 by 12 inches.
- Spread the softened filling butter over the surface, leaving a ½-inch border along one long edge.
- Stir the brown sugar and cinnamon together and scatter evenly over the butter.
- Roll up tightly from the long edge, finishing at the clear border. Pinch the seam closed.
- Cut into 12 equal slices with a serrated knife or a length of thread drawn under and up through the roll.
- Grease a 9×13-inch pan and arrange the buns cut side up, evenly spaced.
- To bake the same day: cover and leave to rise 45 minutes to 1 hour, until puffed and touching. To bake in the morning: cover tightly and refrigerate 8 to 12 hours, then let stand at room temperature 45 minutes before baking.
- Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
- Bake 25 to 30 minutes, until golden and cooked through in the center buns as well as the outer ones.
- Cool in the pan 10 minutes.
- Whisk the powdered sugar with 2 tablespoons milk and the vanilla until pourable, adding the last tablespoon only if needed. Drizzle over the warm buns.
Where Christmas morning cinnamon rolls come from
A cold overnight rise is not simply a convenience. Yeast works slowly at low temperature while the enzymes in the dough continue breaking starch into sugar at close to their usual rate, so a dough left cold overnight develops considerably more flavor than one risen warm in two hours. The bread tastes of more than sweetness.
Cutting the roll with thread rather than a knife is an old kitchen trick and a better one. A blade presses the spiral flat as it goes through; a thread drawn up through the roll cuts without compressing it, and the bun keeps its shape.
Rolled and filled sweet doughs belong to a broad Northern European tradition that arrived in Canada with several different groups of settlers, which is why versions of them turn up in regions that share almost nothing else.
In a modern kitchen
Do not skip the ½-inch clear border. Filling spread to the very edge squeezes out as you roll and welds the buns to the pan.
The center buns cook more slowly than the outer ones. Check the middle of the pan, not the edge, and give them the extra five minutes if they need it.
Glaze while warm, not hot. On a hot bun the glaze runs off entirely and pools in the pan.
How long it keeps
- Cool room: 3 days, airtight
- Refrigerated: Not needed
- Frozen: Not needed, though they freeze well. Baked and unglazed up to 2 months, or shaped and unrisen in the pan up to 1 month, thawed overnight in the refrigerator
Baking this for somebody else?
The Cottage Christmas Gift Kit covers the part no recipe does: how far ahead to make it, what survives a parcel, plus printable gift tags and tin labels. Free, four pages.
This recipe is one of forty-one in Christmas at Green Gables, which runs from the first cake of November through to the New Year. Everything on this site is written the same way it appears in the book.