These easy puff pastry cinnamon rolls are as good as any bakery, but this sweet treat is so much simpler to make when using refrigerated puff pastry dough. Even the cinnamon roll icing, which is made from scratch, whips up in seconds!

Ingredients you'll need

• Puff pastry dough - Pre-made puff pastry is found in the refrigerated section of the grocery store. This is the key ingredient that makes them so much easier to make than traditional cinnamon rolls.
• Butter - The secret to the best cinnamon rolls is to use a generous amount of butter in the filling! The butter combines with the brown sugar and cinnamon and melts during baking, creating the intoxicatingly delicious syrupy filling that is the hallmark of any good cinnamon roll!
• Brown sugar - Dark brown sugar is best, but light brown sugar can be substituted.
• Ground cinnamon
• Vanilla Icing - A combination of powdered sugar, butter, milk, and vanilla extract.

How to make the icing

Don't be intimidated making homemade icing, it is actually incredibly easy! All you have to do is add the powdered sugar, vanilla extract, milk, and softened butter to a small bowl and whisk it together. That is it! You can use a whisk, but a hand mixer works best.

It is a good idea to use room temperature butter, rather than melted butter to make this simple icing because softened butter will combine with the other ingredients more easily without forming lumps. Melted butter can clump up when coming in contact with cold milk. Using an electric mixer rather than a whisk also helps everything to incorporate more smoothly.

If despite your best efforts, lumps still form in your icing, the best way to remove them is to microwave the icing to warm it gently, then mix it together again. Microwave for 10 seconds or less, at a time. You don't want to overheat the icing.

How to make the rolls

Delicious flaky cinnamon rolls are really easy to make with puff pastry sheets. First, lay the refrigerated dough flat on parchment paper or a lightly floured work surface, and then use a spatula to spread the filling mixture of butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon evenly across the dough.

Form the cinnamon rolls by rolling up the dough and then cut each sheet of puff pastry with a sharp knife into 9-12 rounds, depending on your desired thickness. These are then placed on a baking tray and baked in a 400-degree oven for approximately 20 minutes, or until golden brown on the exterior.

Can these be made ahead?

Yes! This puff pastry cinnamon roll recipe can be made in advance and frozen before or after baking if stored in an airtight container. If you freeze them prior to baking, let the unbaked rolls thaw completely before placing them in your oven. If they are already baked you can reheat them at 350 degrees until warmed through.

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This recipe was originally published on October 29, 2020.