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I tried cinnamon-roll recipes from 3 celebrity chefs, and the best one completely blew me away
Paige Bennett
- I followed cinnamon-roll recipes from famous chefs Alton Brown, Ree Drummond, and Sandra Lee.
- Brown's recipe was solid, and Lee's recipe required the least effort, but the rolls were just OK.
- Drummond's recipe was my favorite, but was so messy I'd only make it again for a special occasion.
Imagine sweet, cinnamon sugar swirled into pillowy-soft dough, all dripping in glistening icing — is your mouth watering yet?
When that craving for cinnamon rolls kicks in, you could certainly grab a can from the grocery store — but there's nothing better than gooey, homemade ones filling your whole house with comforting smells.
In search of the ultimate cinnamon roll, I tested recipes from famous chefs Alton Brown, Ree Drummond, and Sandra Lee to see who has the best one.
Read on to see how each recipe turned out, and which was my favorite.
Brown's recipe calls for fairly simple pantry staples
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Brown's recipe on the Food Network website asked for some super basic kitchen ingredients, many of which I already had on hand.
I needed ground cinnamon, light brown sugar, butter, eggs, flour, instant dry yeast, salt, and sugar for the dough and filling. For the icing, I only needed cream cheese, powdered sugar, and milk.
The ingredients are so standard that I happened to have enough on hand to make two batches, which later came in handy when I ran into some trouble with my first attempt.
These are meant to be prepared the day before, which makes morning prep easy
Brown's recipe is for "overnight cinnamon rolls," so I started prepping them the day before I wanted to eat them.
I like the idea of starting these rolls in the evening, letting them chill overnight, then finishing them in the morning. Splitting up the steps makes the process seem much easier.
However, it didn't make it any shorter. I made the dough the day before, let it rise for two and a half hours, and chilled it overnight.
For my dough, I used instant yeast that someone had shared with me from a larger package. I'd stored it in a clear, resealable bag — but it turns out that opened instant yeast should be refrigerated.
As such, my instant yeast was worthless. However, I didn't realize this until it was too late.
My first batch was a bust, but I learned a few lessons
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In the morning, I let my rolls rise further in a cold oven along with a pan of boiling water for 30 minutes. Then I baked them for 30 minutes.
The first batch was definitely wrong. As I foreshadowed, the rolls never rose due to an issue with my instant yeast. The dough looked rather dry from start to finish, and the cinnamon rolls stayed small throughout the process.
They didn't rise in the oven and came out looking undercooked and dry — but at least they worked well as an air freshener.
The icing smelled sweet, but it looked thin with clumps of cream cheese. I wondered if maybe the cream cheese wasn't soft enough, even though I'd left it out for a few hours.
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These cinnamon rolls were difficult to cut into and incredibly dense.
The taste was fine — buttery and filled with a sweet cinnamon flavor — but the texture was just hard and dry. The icing was also a turn-off because of the clumpiness.
I decided to try Brown's recipe one more time
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After my failed first attempt, I made a second batch. This time, I tried using active dry yeast as a substitute for instant yeast by following the simple instructions on the yeast packet. It worked perfectly.
I combined active yeast with warm water (I made sure the temperature was between 100 and 115 degrees Fahrenheit) and sugar and let it sit for 10 minutes before adding it to the mixer to make the dough, per the recipe's instructions.
The second time around, the dough definitely came out fluffier and stickier. It rose very well and was a bit harder to work with because it was so soft and sticky.
My first attempt was a letdown, but the second batch of Brown's rolls was excellent
Paige Bennett for Insider
These came out of the oven looking and smelling delicious.
The brown sugar in the filling leaked out more in this batch, causing the bottoms of the cinnamon rolls to become slightly overdone.
Otherwise, the rolls were so soft. I wish the filling didn't leak out and pool in the bottom of the pan because I would've loved more cinnamon and brown-sugar flavor.
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For my second attempt at the icing, I tried letting the cream cheese sit out even longer to soften, hoping it would be easier to integrate with the powdered sugar and milk — but it still got clumpy.
In the future, I might try topping these with whipped cream cheese instead.
Overall, this recipe resulted in soft, pillowy cinnamon rolls that could use more filling.
Drummond's recipe featured unique ingredients in high enough quantities to feed a crowd
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The Pioneer Woman is often whipping up recipes for a crowd on her cooking show, so it makes sense that her original recipe on the Food Network website yields 40 to 50 cinnamon rolls.
I cut the ingredients in half, and this recipe still produced the most cinnamon rolls of the three recipes I tested.
For this dough and filling, I needed a lot of the same basics, like flour, butter, cinnamon, active dry yeast, sugar, and milk. It also used baking powder and baking soda.
However, there were some more unconventional ingredients for the icing, including maple extract and "strongly brewed coffee." I used cold brew because I already had some made in the fridge.
Oddly enough, this is a one-pot recipe
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Although some mixing bowls are needed for the icing, the dough is actually made in a single pot on the stove. This made for a pretty easy start, even if it seemed strange to me.
I made the dough on the stove as directed, then moved it to a mixing bowl to proof. It rose so well that I had a hard time getting it to stop rising.
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The rising dough overflowed out of my mixing bowl, and it was very difficult to roll out because it was so fluffy and sticky.
I wrangled it as best I could and packed my dough strips with filling before putting them into the baking pans to rise further.
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Although they seemed far apart in the pan, I knew they'd rise even more once they began baking.
The smell of these maple cinnamon rolls was unreal — and the taste was even better
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Despite the mess and frustration, these rolls came out nearly perfect. They were golden with gooey centers, even though they looked a bit pathetic and misshapen going into the oven.
Drummond's maple icing was easy to make, but next time I plan to sift the powdered sugar to prevent it from clumping.
The edges of the cinnamon rolls were just the slightest bit overdone. Aside from the slightly crisp edges, the rolls were perfectly soft with sweet fillings and ooey-gooey centers.
Paige Bennett for Insider
The first bite I took from the middle of one of these rolls was indescribably good, and the maple icing was so delicious I could eat it straight from the bowl.
For just my partner and me, I don't think I would go through the nightmarish mess of this recipe again. However, these cinnamon rolls would absolutely impress a crowd.
Lee's cinnamon rolls were unsurprisingly quick and easy to make
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True to her semi-homemade fame, Lee's recipe on the Food Network website calls for frozen bread dough. My grocery store typically carries one brand of frozen white bread dough, but it was out of stock when I went shopping.
Luckily, in a 2020 Yahoo interview, Lee said you can swap out the frozen bread for biscuit dough in this recipe.
I decided to use buttermilk biscuits because I figured the buttermilk flavor, which is a tad acidic, would balance out the sweetness of the cinnamon rolls
The dough was harder to roll out than I expected
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At first, the biscuit dough felt tough to roll out because it's so dense. However, once I finally flattened it, adding the brown sugar and cinnamon filling was easy — and so was shaping the rolls.
The dough was easy to slice, and doing so created beautiful, nearly perfect rolls. This was a nice break from the other batches of cinnamon rolls I made, which mostly fell apart as I cut them.
Paige Bennett for Insider
I followed the recipe's instructions and left the cut rolls out for one hour to proof. They didn't appear to rise at all during that time, so I'm not sure how necessary this was.
In the meantime, I made the icing with softened butter, cream cheese, vanilla extract, and powdered sugar. Like with Brown's recipe, I found the simple cream-cheese icing I prepared to be lumpy.
The cinnamon rolls looked great, but the centers were too undercooked
Paige Bennett for Insider
These came out golden brown, and the lumps in the icing dissolved once they met the hot rolls.
Unfortunately, the dough was so dense that the centers didn't bake well and were too underdone and doughy. However, with more time in the oven, I predicted that the edges would burn.
Next time, I might cover these with foil for a bit or bake them at a lower temperature so they don't burn but can cook through.
Paige Bennett for Insider
The buttermilk flavor did help cut the extra sweetness from the excessive filling, but otherwise, these tasted quite similar to store-bought cinnamon rolls.
As such, I'd probably skip buying a can of biscuit dough to make these rolls and just opt for a can of store-bought cinnamon rolls.
I'd totally make Drummond's cinnamon rolls again, but only for a special occasion
Paige Bennett for Insider
In general, making homemade cinnamon rolls can be a lengthy and messy affair.
Personally, I don't mind grabbing a can of cinnamon rolls from the store or buying them from a local bakery or restaurant. I'll likely continue to do so, but for special occasions and large gatherings, I'd make Drummond's recipe in a heartbeat.
It resulted in such decadently sweet cinnamon rolls, and the maple icing was such a unique touch that really made them next-level.
Check out the other celebrity-chef recipes we've put head-to-head so far.
This story was originally published on TK and most recently updated on TK.
