Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls and How to Freeze Cinnamon Rolls
I love homemade cinnamon rolls. I think they might be one of my favorite things to bake. Back in the fall, I got it stuck in my head that I really wanted to make pumpkin cinnamon rolls. If you think of the spices in pumpkin pie, it seems obvious that pumpkin and cinnamon go together really well.
So I set out to find a recipe. There are quite a few out there. But, the last thing Hubby and I need in the house is an entire batch of cinnamon rolls! So I decided I wanted to make some and freeze some for later.
Now over the past few years, I have gotten over my fear of yeast. I’m comfortable using yeast in recipes, but I am not to the point where I mess with recipes containing yeast. I wasn’t exactly sure how freezing the cinnamon rolls would affect the yeast in the dough…
Almost as if the people at King Arthur Flour knew about my predicament, I saw this post on their blog about freezing cinnamon rolls. You basically make the cinnamon rolls like the recipe says, but you only bake them for about 15 minutes. Then you take them out of the oven, partially cooked, allow them to cool, then freeze them.
Then, when you want to enjoy your cinnamon rolls, you simply pop them in the fridge to defrost overnight. The next morning, you bake them about 20 minutes and voila – homemade cinnamon rolls in just 20 minutes! The best thing about this method is that you can apply it to any cinnamon roll recipe.
The dough has pumpkin and some spices in it. The filling in these is simply homemade pumpkin pie spice. It really helped to enhance the pumpkiny flavor of the dough. And obviously, I topped these cinnamon rolls with some cinnamon cream cheese frosting. You can’t have cinnamon rolls without frosting!
I made the cinnamon rolls on a Saturday and put 8 rolls into two disposable 8″ pans with lids. I popped one into the freezer after they cooled and the other half batch got thrown into the fridge. We enjoyed the batch from the fridge the next morning and the batch from the freezer a couple weeks later. I can vouch that the batch from the freezer tasted just as delicious as the batch from the fridge. This is method is definitely going to be used repeatedly in our house.
Note, as I was contemplating (aka obsessing about) this recipe, I contacted my go-to yeast expert, Bridget about what to do and which recipe I should use. She recommended adapting this pumpkin bread recipe, which is what I used. Since then, she has also posted about pumpkin cinnamon rolls, so feel free to just go straight to that post for her version.
Three Years Ago: Vegan Brownies
Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
Ingredients:
For the Dough
4 1/2 cups bread flour
1 Tbsp instant yeast
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1/4 tsp ground cloves (optional)
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups pumpkin puree
4 Tbsp butter
For the Filling
3/4 cup light brown sugar
1 1/2 Tbsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
big pinch of cardamom (or you can substitute mace)
1/8 tsp salt
1 Tbsp melted butter
For the Frosting
4 oz cream cheese, at room temp
2 Tbsp butter, at room temp
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
2-4 Tbsp milk
Directions:
Mix the flour, yeast, spiced, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. In a large measuring cup, lightly beat the eggs and whisk in the pumpkin and butter. With the mixer on low speed, gradually add the liquid ingredients. Continue mixing on medium-low until the dough is elastic and supple, about 8 minutes. You may need to add a little more flour or water to get the correct consistency – soft but not sticky.
Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl and cover with plastic wrap or a damp dishtowel. Set the dough aside to rise until it has doubled in volume, about 1 1/2 hours.
Make the filling by combining the filling ingredients in a small bowl. Set aside.
Grease two 8" round pans. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Using a serrated knife, cut the dough in half.
Set half of the dough aside and roll the other half into a large rectangle around 16"x12". Spread half of the filling onto the dough and roll into a log starting with the long side nearest to you. You may need to use some warm water to seal the edge of the dough. Slice the log into 8 pieces. Repeat with other piece of dough.
Cover with plastic wrap and let rise 1.5-2 hours.
To serve now: Preheat oven to 350. Bake cinnamon rolls 25-30 minutes until lightly browned.
To freeze and serve later: Preheat oven to 325. Bake cinnamon rolls for 15 minutes. Let the buns cool complete in the pan. When they are completely cooled, cover and freeze.
When you are ready to serve the buns, place buns in the fridge to thaw out overnight. The next morning, preheat oven to 350. Bake until buns are light brown, about 20 minutes.
Make the frosting while the cinnamon rolls are baking by beating butter and cream cheese in a stand mixer. Add the cinnamon and mix until smooth. Slowly mix in powdered sugar. Add milk to thin frosting to desired consistency. Frosting can be frozen.
Dough Recipe adapted from The Way the Cookie Crumbles (originally from King Arthur Flour)
Filling Recipe from Joy the Baker
Frosting Recipe from ME!
I am Jen the Beantown Baker. Engineer by day and baking maven by night. Hubby serves as my #1 fan and official taste tester. We got hitched back in 2006. Barefoot. In the sand. With the waves crashing behind us. It was one of the best decisions we’ve ever made. 
These look fantastic and are so festive!
Oh my, these look divine! I recently made something similar, but with no chocolate – just a pumpkin batter with cream cheese topping. But I definitely think I must try these too.
These are absolutely beautiful!
Look wonderful!
These look awesome. I just wish it made a bigger pan!
They’re pretty rich, but I would imagine you could just double it and make it in a 9×13 pan if you wanted!
I made pumpkin spice brownies on Friday and they were delish so I bet these are EVEN BETTER! Thanks for sharing and I’ll be following your tweaks!
~ingrid
i always make a pumpkin cheesecake in the fall with a ginger cookie crumb crust, but i’m liking the chocolate component in your recipe even more.
oh yum – love pumpkin, and the chocolate/pumpkin combo looks wonderful!
These look great! Is there a way I can make them non-dairy? Something I can sub the cream cheese for? Thanks!
Heather – I’ve had great luck subbing Tofutti Better than Cream Cheese in cheesecake recipes in the past. I think that would definitely work and you could use Earth Balance in the brownie portion. Let me know how it turns out if you try it.
Hi Jenn! I just wanted to let you know that you won the giveaway on my blog last week. I emailed you, but never got a response. Could you email me your mailing address to jennharton@paducah.com. I have to pass it along to myblogspark so they can send you your prize package!
Thanks, Jen…I’ll let you know how they come out!
OH wow these do look delicious! I love all that swirled pumpkin…yum!
Those look amazing!
Wow, I love these! My husband would die of happiness of I made these for him – pumpkin cheesecake is his favorite thing for fall.
They look like tiger fur – very cool! What an interesting flavour combination.
We love these at my house! I like your idea of dark chocolate – I will have to try that next time.
beautiful! And they look so delicious!! I agree I don’t normally think of pumpkin with chocolate… but you have me convinced!
The tops of these are a work of art! Love it!
Three of my favorite thi ngs in one dessert! Chocolate and pumpkin and cheesecake! How perfect…
~Nancy
Three of my favorite thi ngs in one dessert! Chocolate and pumpkin and cheesecake! How perfect…
~Nancy
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The side-view shot totally won me over. These look delicious!
This looks so yummy.
I now know what to make for the office potluck!
Those look amazing. I love pumpkin with chocolate, I plan on making these soon.
Your brownies look delicious! I am curious since I would like mine to taste more like pumpkin pie than plain pumpkin should i add pumpkin pie spices or follow your recipe for the spices?
Thanks!
fawkes – There are a decent amount of spices in the pumpkin portion of the batter. I would recommend making is as the recipe states, then taste it before you pour it into the pan. Maybe then add some pumpkin pie spice if you’d like.
I made these over the weekend and they were scrumptious!! I’m not a huge fan of pumpkin but this recipe is now a fall staple. I plan on making them for the family on Thanksgiving…thanks for sharing this!
I made these the other day and they were great! a hit at work! yum! thanks!
I stumbled across your blog from a Facebook friend and made these brownies last night. DELICIOUS!! I doubled the recipe and it does just fit in a 9×13 pan and took about 60 mins to bake. It’s worth the wait for them to be chilled in the fridge. The flavors are even more delicious that way.
Oh YUM! And gorgeous, to boot. I never thought pumpkin and chocolate go together either, until I tried it! 🙂 Now I’m hooked. Good idea to double up on the cheesecake layer…you can never have enough pumpkin cheesecake after all!
Thank you so much for participating in our event! These brownies look amazing. They say Halloween to me for sure!
I made these– now I love them! Will be repeated each fall 🙂
Amazing! I loved these so much I played with them a bit and made cranberry cheesecake brownies for my christmas baking.(I didn’t stumble on to these till christmas.) I’ll let you know when I put those up on my blog! With credit to you of course!
Lexi – cranberry cheesecake brownies sound very intriguing. Can’t wait to see them.
Hi Jen! I made these for Heather@BFM’s (comment listed above) birthday and she loved them! Unfortunately I could not find the Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder (I tried 3 stores) so I had to make them with the regular cocoa powder. Can you tell me where you found the Hershey’s Special Dark??
Kasey – I have actually had a hard time finding it as well. I had actually all but given up on it until one day it caught my eye at the grocery store. I proceeded to buy all three containers. I would say just keep an eye out for it and good luck!
1/2 cup of flour seems like very little. Is that correct?
Pup – Yes, that is the correct amount of flour. Most brownie batters have very little flour in them.
Just made these- delicious! I only had the milk chocolate powder, so I’m excited to try it again with the special dark powder.
I doubled the recipe and it perfectly filled a 13×9 pan so you might try it. 🙂 And they are amazing. Also I used margerine not butter and found they were more moist. Happy Baking!
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I made these with my nieces and over all they were pretty good, but something about the pumpkin part tasted off. Still, fun and festive to make!