Yesterday, I had a cinnamon bun emergency. I needed cinnamon buns, and I needed them right away. I didn’t have time for overnight cinnamon rolls, even if I baked them right away. I didn’t have time for yeast. This was an emergency, I’m telling you!
So I turned to Quick Mix, my homemade baking mix, to throw me a lifeline. A cinnamon bun lifeline.
Quick bread cinnamon rolls are not the same as yeast cinnamon rolls, but they are fast and they are delicious. And sometimes that’s just what you need. You can have these buns shaped, baked, iced, and in your hands in under an hour.
In this recipe, you can use Quick Mix or any other baking mix, but if you’d prefer to make them from scratch without a mix, I’ve also included the scratch recipe. It would be easy to make all sorts of variations on this basic cinnamon bun recipe, adding raisins, nuts, and whatever else suits your fancy.
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How to make Fast Cinnamon Buns:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup lard or shortening
3/4 cup milk
Note: To use a baking mix, replace first 5 ingredients with 3 cups baking mix, adding a tablespoon of sugar.
Place first 5 ingredients (or 3 cups of baking mix) in a large bowl and work in the lard or shortening with a pastry cutter. Add the milk.
Knead the dough lightly, adding a little extra flour if needed to keep from sticking, or a little extra milk if it’s too dry. (You don’t want a real wet dough, though, so be careful.)
On a floured surface, roll dough into a rectangle. I made mine about 14 x 9. You don’t have to be exact.
Prepare the filling.
Filling:
3 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
I added the cloves for more spicy flavor, but you could leave that out if you don’t like it.
Brush dough with melted butter. Combine brown sugar, cinnamon, and cloves (if using). Spread over the buttered dough, taking care to get right up to the edges.
I made these buns a little differently than I do when I make my yeast cinnamon rolls. Rather than roll the rectangle up and make slices, I sliced it flat, cutting strips that were about 1 1/2 inches to 2 inches wide. (I made 8 strips from a 14-inch long piece of dough.)
Then I rolled up each strip of dough and sealed the seams. When rolling the strips, I took the end where I started rolling and rolled it out away from the rest of the strip a bit, which made it stick out from the top.
Then I rolled up the rest of the strip evenly.
This makes a nice fat cinnamon bun with the center sticking up. I just thought it looked pretty that way. I’m into pretty cinnamon buns.
And fast cinnamon buns.
Filled with spicy goodness.
Place rolls in a large greased pan. (I used an iron skillet, but that’s not necessary.) Bake in a preheated 450-degree oven for approximately 20-25 minutes.
Powdered Sugar Icing:
Combine 1 cup sifted powdered sugar, 1/2 teaspoon vanilla, and enough milk (two to four teaspoons) for drizzling consistency.
Drizzle all over it. Then drizzle some more,
Start eating!
See this recipe at Farm Bell Recipes and save it to your recipe box.
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mamawolf says:
These yummy goodies look like an excellent way to start the morning. Thank goodness I made the baking mix a while ago. Good-by for now. Must make cinnamon rolls. Back later. :snoopy:
On February 23, 2011 at 6:44 am
Anke says:
Those look soooo good!
On February 23, 2011 at 6:49 am
Hlhohnholz says:
You realize I posted these on FBR about a month ago, right? 😛 This is the way my family has made cinnamon rolls for generations. Soooo easy and YUM!
MrsFuzz
On February 23, 2011 at 7:27 am
Suzanne McMinn says:
I missed that one, Mrs Fuzz! Great minds think alike! 🙂
On February 23, 2011 at 7:29 am
Window On The Prairie says:
Can those be mailed? Hmmmm… Here, let me give you my mailing address and we’ll find out how well they ship. All in the interest of research of course. :hungry:
On February 23, 2011 at 8:06 am
Gem says:
I’m gonna weigh 2000 lbs. if I keep hanging around here 😉
On February 23, 2011 at 8:10 am
joycee says:
Thanks for telling me that I can have these in 20-25 minutes…thanks a lot! You are a bad influence on weak people like me, Missy!
On February 23, 2011 at 8:15 am
Lindsay says:
OMG those look so good! Now I’m hungry :woof:
On February 23, 2011 at 8:26 am
Imperious Fig says:
My dad always made these. He called them cinnamon biscuits….YUMMY!
On February 23, 2011 at 9:33 am
Patti Jarrett says:
I will have to try this! My MIL used to make something similar, but she started with biscuits from a can. And I don’t think she glazed them. I like the idea of using the biscuit mix…for a quick cinnamon roll fix!
On February 23, 2011 at 10:26 am
Jennifer Robin says:
I seem to recall someting similar to these being a very popular recipe from an old Bisquick cookbook. Thanks for the reminder. I like homemade baking mix so much better than packaged; no funny aftertaste from heaven knows what mystery ingredient!
On February 23, 2011 at 12:24 pm
Kaylen says:
That looks sooooo yummy! Thanks! I need cinnamon buns NOW 🙂
On February 23, 2011 at 12:46 pm
Teri says:
Can hardly wait to try these!! Thanks!!
On February 23, 2011 at 1:13 pm
Urbanite says:
These look delicious. Inquiring (OK, nosy if you must) need to know what the cinnamon roll emergency was. A treat you needed to take somewhere? A tough day that could be fixed with a cinnamon roll?
I was planning to try your Quick Mix for the first time today after work. My intention was to make Tea Muffins, but I might need to make cinnamon rolls instead.
On February 23, 2011 at 3:17 pm
Urbanite says:
That was supposed to be inquiring minds.
On February 23, 2011 at 3:18 pm
Joell says:
:woof:
These look delicious, a nice thing to fix for a nice winter morning breakfast when nothing else sounds good. I am happy to see you use brown sugar in your cinnamon rolls as well, that makes such a nice rich flavor difference.
The recipe for the dough is nearly the same recipe that I use for my shortcake biscuits.
On February 23, 2011 at 4:34 pm
Hlhohnholz says:
Hey, I just wanted to make sure my earlier post didn’t come off as being snappish. I wrote it early this morning, and later realized I probably didn’t do the best job of conveying my point. I just wanted to clarify that I think it’s awesome when people discover a simpler, easier, no-less-tasty-just-different way to enjoy their favorite dishes! 🙂 Thanks for posting this, Suzanne.
On February 23, 2011 at 8:53 pm
Marci says:
Oh my goodness! These look wonderful! Definitely on my list of things to do! :duck:
On February 25, 2011 at 12:04 pm
jenny howard says:
Wanted some breakfast food, thought cinnamon rolls sounded good, didn’t have time to wait hours for a yeast dough (we were leaving to volunteer at the soup kitchen in about an hour), and I remembered this post from back when I used to read this blog, looked it up and about an hour later, we have cinnamon rolls! (So we ended up leaving 20 minutes late bc I got overly ambitious about how log it would take).
Terrific recipe, as usual, thank you for sharing–definitely worth repeating.
For posterity’s sake:
I didn’t roll the dough, I just patted it out and eyeballed the dimensions.
The ratio of butter:sugar in the filling is PERFECT.
I did mine with the centers sticking up too, but they stuck up a little too high and got slightly burnt (not enough to ruin it though)…I am only just now looking at the “process” pics–with only one roll left to eat.
On June 11, 2015 at 5:02 am