Personally, I’m not a small batch cinnamon rolls kinda girl. I like a big batch to share, or just over indulge. They always will get eaten. But! I know not everyone wants a 12 big cinnamon rolls. Maybe you live alone, or your family is small and not super into sweets. Whatever the case may be, this recipe is for you.
This recipe is my Brown Butter Cinnamon Rolls scaled down. Just as delicious, just instead of a whole big pan, you get either 2/3 BIG cinnamon rolls or 4 smaller rolls. There will be a small difference in the texture, but it’s really minor. Because there are so few rolls in the batch, most likely will not fill up a pan. The sides will be exposed and therefore get browned. If you small super small 4 inch cake pans you could probably bake them individually and solve that problem. Once you drizzle on the frosting it’s moot.
Baking Notes
Because this recipe is so scaled down, the amount of dough is pretty small. If you have a larger mixer 6+ quarts, your mixer will most likely struggle to engage with the dough. I hand kneaded this for about 5-7 minutes to get the dough to come together before I tried putting it in the mixer again. At that point it did finally start to knead it.
The measurements for rolling out the dough are for 4 cinnamon rolls. If you’d like this to make just two larger rolls, I’d reduce the width from 6 inches wide to about 4 and roll out the dough longer than 10 inches. So instead of a 6×10″ rectangle, roll it out to about a 4×12 or 4×14 inch rectangle. This will give you wider vs taller rolls.
Small Batch Cinnamon Rolls Key Ingredients
- AP Flour – My regular size batch recipe does use bread flour, so you can use bread flour in this recipe, but you might need slightly (maybe a teaspoon) more milk. I decided to just use AP with this recipe for ease of accessibility.
- Milk – Milk is going to make our rolls extra tender because of the fat.
- Cinnamon – I always use Vietnamese cinnamon because it has extra punchy flavor. I love cinnamon and want an extra strong flavor. If you have traditional cinnamon that is OK! I might add a touch more just for a little extra flavor.
Ingredients
- 120 g AP Flour 1 cup
- ½ tsp Instant yeast
- ½ tsp Sea salt
- 65 g Whole or 2% milk ¼ cup + 1 tsp, warm
- 1 large Egg yolk room temperature
- 14 g Unsalted butter 1 tbsp, softened
Filling
- 29 g Unsalted butter 2 tbsp, softened
- 37 g Dark brown sugar 3 tbsp
- ½ tbsp Cinnamon
- dash Nutmeg
- dash Sea salt
Frosting
- 28 g Cream Cheese 1 oz, room temperature
- 14 g Unsalted butter 1 tbsp
- 30 g Powdered Sugar 4 tbsp
Instructions
- In the bowl of your stand mixer with dough hook attached, mix together flour, yeast, salt, milk, and egg yolk. If you have a larger mixer, you may need to mix by hand in the bowl as the hook may have a difficult time engaging with the small amount of dough.
- Once the dough comes together, add in softened butter and mix on low until dough is smooth and and elastic.
- Remove your dough from bowl, shape into a ball, lightly grease your bowl, place dough ball back in the bowl and cover. Allow to proof in a warm area for 60-90 min or until dough has doubled in size.
- Line a small baking sheet or cake pan with parchment paper and set aside.
- When dough is ready, remove from bowl, punch down and roll out into a small rectangle. If making four medium cinnamon rolls, roll into a 6×10 inch rectangle. If only making two large cinnamon rolls, roll into about a 4×12 inch rectangle.
- Mix your filling ingredients: softened butter, cinnamon, nutmeg and brown sugar, and spread onto your rolled out dough. Leave about a half inch border on the long sides.
- Roll up your dough on the short side. Cut your dough into either 2 or 4 pieces, using a serrated knife or unflavored floss/thread.
- Place your cinnamon rolls on your prepared baking sheet and cover. Let them rise for about another 30 minutes.
- While your rolls proof, preheat your oven to 350°F.
- When rolls are ready to go in the oven, place your baking sheet on the center rack and bake for about 20-22 minutes. The tops of the rolls will be lightly golden when ready.
- While your cinnamon rolls are baking, prepare the frosting.
- In a small saucepan, brown your 1 tbsp of butter. Because this is such a small amount of butter it should brown very quickly. Pour it into a small bowl to allow to cool.
- When butter has cooled, add your softened cream cheese and whisk together until smooth.
- Add your powdered sugar and whisk until you have a smooth frosting. Add to your cinnamon rolls. If added when cinnamon rolls are still hot frosting will melt. I often recommend adding a small amount of the frosting to each cinnamon roll right out the oven, letting it melt into the nooks and crannies. Then waiting until the cinnamon rolls have cooled to spread the rest of the frosting on the tops. Enjoy!
This recipe looks incredible! Can’t wait to make these!
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