Birthday Cake Cinnamon Rolls Recipe
Homemade cinnamon rolls are a luxury that I don’t often take the time to make, but these easy cinnamon rolls reminded me that I need make homemade cinnamon rolls more often! I used my 2013 recipe for Overnight Buttermilk Soft and Fluffy Cinnamon Rolls and simply added rainbow sprinkles. I also used this recipe for Overnight Eggnog Cinnamon Rolls for the holidays. No cake mix here! The beauty of this recipe is that you can start it the afternoon or evening before you want to wake up with a batch of freshly made cinnamon rolls. This is especially handy for holiday mornings or special mornings like Easter, Mother’s Day, a special brunch or birthday, or Christmas morning. Or if you want to make the recipe straight through, you can do it that way, too. I chose this dough recipe because of any cinnamon roll I’ve ever made or tasted, this is my absolute favorite dough. It’s soft, fluffy and tender with the perfect amount of chewiness. It’s a buttery, rich, and moist dough thanks to well, the butter, three eggs, and buttermilk. If you’ve ever had a Cinnabon cinnamon roll, it’s similar to that, but lighter and fluffier and these Funfetti cinnamon rolls just melt in your mouth! The interior of each buttermilk cinnamon roll is abundantly flavored with cinnamon and sugar, brown sugar, and rainbow sprinkles to create birthday cake cinnamon rolls. Of course I topped my homemade cinnamon rolls with homemade cream cheese frosting. There is nothing better than the tangy sweet and buttery flavor of cream cheese frosting with cinnamon rolls. Although you could use buttercream frosting or Marshmallow Buttercream Frosting instead.
Ingredients in Rainbow Sprinkle Cinnamon Rolls
To make overnight cinnamon rolls with rainbow sprinkles, you only need a handful of common refrigerator and pantry ingredients. If you’re a baker, you probably already have many of these staples on hand including the following:
Cinnamon Rolls
All-purpose flour Granulated sugar Instant dry yeast Salt Unsalted butter Eggs Buttermilk
Filling
Unsalted butter Light brown sugar Cinnamon
Rainbow sprinkles
Cream Cheese Frosting
Cream cheese Vanilla extract Confectioners’ sugar Salt Rainbow sprinkles
Note: Scroll down to the recipe card section of the post for the ingredients with amounts included and for more complete directions.
How to Make Birthday Cake Cinnamon Rolls
Follow these straightforward steps to ensure your Funfetti cinnamon rolls turn out perfectly. Much more detailed directions and instructions are in the actual recipe card below.
Dough
Step 1: Combine the dry ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer and set aside. Step 2: Melt the butter in a separate small bowl. Step 3: Crack and lightly whisk the eggs in another small bowl. Step 4: Warm the buttermilk to the temperature indicated on the package directions based on the brand of yeast you’re using and take the temperature with a thermometer. Step 5: Add all the wet ingredients to the dry and using a dough hook, knead for 10 to 12 minutes until a dough forms. By hand, it’ll be 15 to 18 minutes. Step 6: Add a bit more flour if the dough is overly sticky. Step 7: Allow the dough to rise in a large mixing bowl sprayed very well with cooking spray for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, or until doubled in size.
Shaping The Rolls
Step 1: After the dough has doubled in size, punch it down. Step 2: Turn it out onto a floured surface and knead it by hand for 2 minutes. Step 3: Roll it out to a 16×12-inch large rectangle. Step 4: Brush or spread softened butter over the surface. Step 5: Add sugar, brown sugar. And the cinnamon. Step 6: Sprinkle the birthday cake sprinkles. Step 7: Roll it up vertically or “the long way”. Step 8: Slice into 12 pieces. Step 9: Place in a large baking dish, 9×13-inch pan, or jelly roll pan. Cover with plastic wrap and now it’s decision time. If you’re doing the overnight make-ahead option, slide the pan into the fridge and keep it there for up to 16 hours before baking the rolls. When it’s time to bake the next day, allow the rolls to come up to room temperature and rise for 1 hour on the counter, or until almost doubled in size. And then bake. If you’re making them straight through, allow the rolls to rise in a warm, draft-free place for 60 to 90 minutes, or until almost doubled in size. And then bake.
Baking
Bake them at 350ºF for 22 to 25 minutes, or until lightly golden on top and cooked through, but not overly browned. Rotate your pan midway through. While they cool, make the frosting.
How to Make Cream Cheese Frosting for Cinnamon Rolls
Making your own frosting is a cinch! Simply do the following: Step 1: Beat together the butter and cream cheese. Step 2: Beat in the powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth and fluffy/ Step 3: Spread over the cinnamon rolls. Step 4: Add the sprinkles and serve!
What Type of Yeast Should I Use?
I used Red Star Platinum Instant Dry Yeast. It’s an instant dry yeast, so you don’t have to proof it first with water and wait for it to get bubbly and foamy like you do with active dry yeast. Just sprinkle it right into the bowl with the other ingredients and then pour the liquids over the top of everything. When I deviate from Platinum and use other yeast, my dough doesn’t rise as well and doesn’t bake up as puffy and fluffy. However, you can use any brand of instant dry yeast you like. The recipe has been written and tested with instant yeast so if you want to use active yeast, you would need to experiment on your own. However, I suggest just sticking with instant yeast to remove all the guesswork for yourself.
How to Tell If the Buttermilk Mixture is Warm Enough to Activate the Yeast
Yeast needs to be activated by a warm liquid. However, if it’s too hot you can kill the yeast. But if it’s too cold, the yeast won’t activate. Therefore, use a digital thermometer for cooking and make sure your mixture of melted butter, eggs, and buttermilk is heated to the temperature that the brand of yeast you’re using calls for. Some people just dip their finger into the liquid and if that’s the method you’re using, err on the side of warm bath water rather than hot because you don’t want to risk killing the yeast. However, in bread-making, baking, and candy-making knowing the actual temperature based on a thermometer is something I never just guess with. Other brands and yeast call for much lower temperatures, about 95 to 105F. Warm the buttermilk according to manufacturer’s recommendations on the packaging. One size does not fit all here!
Do I Have to Use Buttermilk?
Buttermilk helps the dough rise and also gives it a bit of extra special flavor that you can’t get from dough made without it. This recipe was designed and developed using real buttermilk and you need to use it. You cannot use regular milk or water. I buy my buttermilk Trader Joe’s because I find they have the best prices and good quality. Here’s what to do if you don’t have any traditional buttermilk on hand:
Make your own buttermilk with whole milk and vinegar. Add 3/4 cup of 2% or whole milk to a large measuring cup. Stir in 1 tablespoon of white vinegar. Let that mixture sit for 2 minutes before using in the recipe. You can use powdered buttermilk. You’ll mix how many ever tablespoons the package calls for, with 3/4 cup of water, to yield 3/4 cup of buttermilk. For those who bake with or use buttermilk semi-frequently, but not so frequently to keep in in your fridge, keeping a tub of powdered buttermilk in your pantry is very handy.
How to Encourage Your Dough to Rise
A trick for creating a warm environment for the dough to rise in is to turn on the oven for one minute to 400ºF, then turn the oven off. Check out The Best Buttermilk Recipes or every single Buttermilk Recipe I’ve ever posted for plenty of easy and delicious recipes. Don’t let that buttermilk go to waste when there are so many possibilities! Repeat: don’t leave the oven on, you are just blasting in hot air for one minute only! Quickly slide your bowl into the oven and let it stay there to rise. It will be about 85ºF inside the oven after the brief one-minute blast. This tricks the yeast into thinking it’s a nice, warm summer day in your kitchen, which is how yeast can do their best work. For the 2 1/2 hours the dough bowl was parked inside my powered-off oven, I powered it on 3 times, every 45 minutes or so, for 1 minute each time. This kept the oven toasty because it was a cold night I made the dough and the oven and my “warm environment” was non-existent.
Tips for Making Overnight Cinnamon Rolls with Birthday Cake Sprinkles
Stand Mixer
A stand mixer will make your life immensely easier because the dough needs to be kneaded for a minimum of 10 minutes. However, you can also do it by hand — and in the process, you’ll burn off enough calories that you easily deserve a couple rolls.
Do not use a handheld electric mixer
It’s too small for the job. Either use a stand mixer or your own elbow grease.
Do Not Over-Flour The Dough
The most important thing you can do in this entire recipe is trust that the moisture level of the dough is high and not over-flour it. The more flour you add, the denser the dough becomes, and the heavier the rolls will be. It’s nice in theory to have a smooth, round, mound of satiny, non-sticky dough, but that’s not this cinnamon roll dough. The cinnamon roll dough in this recipe is wet, gloppy, moist, messy, sticky, and of all the bread I’ve ever made, this dough gets the award as the sloppiest. When kneading in a mixer, the rule of thumb for this type of dough is that it clears the sides of the bowl, but sticking the bottom of the bowl is fine.
But… Know When to Add Flour
If baking is an art, bread-making and cinnamon roll making is a higher art form. That’s because only with practice will you know when and how much flour to add. Based on the brand of flour you use, the amount of humidity in the air, sometimes the 4 1/2 cups of flour called for may just not be quite enough. So you need to add more. If the dough is just too wet and sloppy and you can’t work with it or get it from mixing bowl to rising bowl, it’s too wet so add flour.
Cream Cheese Frosting
I simply used butter, cream cheese, vanilla, and confectioners’ sugar in my homemade frosting. Adding a splash of milk, cream, or buttermilk if necessary for consistency; or orange zest or almond extract or whatever you may enjoy for flavor enhancement is up to you. Buttercream frosting or Marshmallow Buttercream Frosting are also good options if you don’t opt for cream cheese frosting.
Quantity of Frosting
The amount of cream cheese frosting for cinnamon rolls I made could be in excess of what you may need for your rolls if you don’t like a lot of frosting. However we are frosting people and like a lot! You could halve the recipe, although personally I don’t think you will have quite enough. Leftover frosting keeps for a couple weeks in the refrigerator and I have also frozen it for months. When I am dirtying the mixer to make it, I may as well make a decent amount.
Read Well
I wrote the recipe below as clearly and descriptively as possible. Before making these homemade cinnamon rolls, read it over at least three times so you know where you’re going, what’s next, and how much butter you need to set aside. This is the type of recipe that’s not “hard” but there are a lot of steps and details so it’s important to have a mental map in advance of what you’re going to be doing.
More Easy Cinnamon Roll Recipes:
Overnight Cinnamon Rolls — These overnight cinnamon rolls are ultra soft and fluffy thanks to the buttermilk in the dough. Top them with homemade cream cheese frosting and enjoy! Tried this recipe? Leave a review! Consider leaving a 5 star rating if you’ve made and loved one of my recipes! 1-Hour Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Frosting — The dough is made, rolled out, sliced, and immediately baked, which eliminates many hours and steps compared to most cinnamon roll recipes. Nutella Cinnamon Rolls with Vanilla Glaze — A can of crescent rolls never tasted so good as when they’re stuffed with Nutella and rolled up. Ready from start to finish in 15 minutes, no joke The Best Glazed Orange Sweet Rolls — These homemade orange rolls are filled with a buttery orange filling and are topped with a simple orange glaze. They can be prepped the night before, if needed. Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Bake — The recipe is easy, ready in 40 minutes, and you don’t even have to make scratch cinnamon roll dough. The BEST Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls — The glaze soaks into the nooks and crannies and adds even more moisture and softness. Total gooey, cinnamon-and-sugary, juicy perfection. Caramel Apple Cinnamon Roll Bake — This cinnamon roll recipe with apples and caramel sauce is easy, ready in 30 minutes, and you don’t even have to make scratch cinnamon roll dough. Overnight Eggnog Cinnamon Rolls — The SOFTEST and FLUFFIEST cinnamon rolls with an overnight MAKE-AHEAD option and eggnog frosting adds the perfect touch!! These would be a great make ahead Christmas breakfast option!
