News flash! It’s fall, and dammit we can only hold ourselves back from pumpkin and stews and boots and cozy sweaters for so long. I wore a sweater and boots last Friday and, yes, I was so hot that I wanted to die, but I am so tired of looking at my summer clothes that something just had to give. Let’s crank up the AC and make fall happen! Inside, at least. I roasted my first butternut squash this past weekend, and I felt really good about it. It was time. It was also time to make these cinnamon rolls. These pumpkin cinnamon rolls.
For some strange reason, I’ve been wanting them like mad lately. It’s weird because do you know the last time I ate a cinnamon roll, or a cinnamon roll-type thing? I don’t. It’s been so long, but I’ve had the hankering and after making some pumpkin cupcakes last week, I had both extra pumpkin and maple cream cheese frosting. The solution was obvious, and these cinnamon rolls we now have.
Making honest to goodness cinnamon rolls from scratch are really quite enjoyable, yeast and all and aren’t really that bad of a process. Crank up the tunes and let it happen naturally. My big beef with making them is that a batch typically makes too many. I am one tiny person, after all.
The geniuses at Dessert for Two feel my pain and conundrum and desire to eat cinnamon rolls and have a devised a non-yeast recipe that makes only FOUR cinnamon rolls! Still a lot of my tiny person to eat, but I find four much more manageable than a large pan of eight to ten. Four, I can do that.
And so can you!
Regular baking parts are mixed together to form a nice dough, filled with pumpkin puree, sugar and spices and butter. All good things.
I actually wanted to put pecans on them but I was too busy fooling around with Instagram stories that I forgot.
Whoopsy.
Rolled, sliced, baked and frosted. No rise times. No fuss, little muss.
Perfect for a weekend morning, over a cup of coffee, waiting for fall to catch up.
Written after the Cubbies won! #FlytheW. Also, throwing it back by listening to Lifehouse. Swoon.
Pumpkin Cinnamon rolls
Easy small batch pumpkin cinnamon rolls are done in less than an hour, and topped with a lovely maple cream cheese frosting.
Ingredients
- For the rolls:
- 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 2 TB granulated sugar, divided in half
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/4 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 5 TB milk
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 4 tablespoons butter, melted, divided in half
- 3 TB sugar in the raw (or light brown sugar)
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp ginger
- 1/4 tsp cloves
- 1/4 tsp allspice
- 1/4 cup pumpkin puree
- For the frosting:
- 4 ounces cream cheese (not low fat), room temperature
- 4 TB unsalted butter, room temperature
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 TB milk
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/8 tsp maple extract
- 1/4 tsp salt
Directions
- Step 1 Make the cinnamon rolls.
- Step 2 Preheat the oven to 375F.
- Step 3 In a small bowl, combine the pumpkin puree, sugar in the raw, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves, 1 TB granulated sugar and 2 TB melted butter. Set aside.
- Step 4 In a medium bowl, combine the flour, remaining 1 TB of the sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Step 5 In a small measuring cup, combine the milk, vinegar, and remaining 2 tablespoons of the melted butter.
- Step 6 Add the wet ingredients to the dry, and stir until a soft dough forms. Do not overtax.
- Step 7 Heavily flour a work surface, and roll the dough out into a rectangle about 6″ long. Spread the pumpkin mixture atop the dough, leaving about 1 cm of an edge all the way around the dough.
- Step 8 Carefully, roll the dough away from you, starting with the long side. When you get to the end of the dough, pinch the entire seam shut.
- Step 9 Cut the dough into 4 equal pieces, drop into four greased muffin cups. Bake 15-16 minutes until slightly golden.
- Step 10 While the rolls bake, beat together the softened cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, milk and extracts until smooth.
- Step 11 When the cinnamon rolls come out of the oven, let them sit five minutes before frosting them. Enjoy!
