Do you like cinnamon buns? Brownie points if you love Cinnabon cinnamon rolls like I do? If you’re a cinnamon roll fan, you’re going to love these donuts.
Really, who doesn’t love a cinnamon roll?
Warm baked dough that’s sweet, dense, cinnamony and sugary, ooey gooey, with frosting everywhere.
Yes, please.
I worked at the mall when I was in high school and between Panda Chinese food, Mrs. Field’s Cookies, and Cinnabons, I ate more sodium, grease, and sugar than should be legal or is good for the complexion. But hey, you’re only 16 and working next to the food court once.
I have such fond memories of Cinnabons. The dense texture of them, the flavors of the cinnamon, sugar, and melted butter, the warm dough, and that cream cheese frosting.
I always ordered extra frosting and it was 50 cents for that extra cup of frosting but when you’re in high school working at a minimum wage job, you notice the price of tea in China the price of extra frosting. But best use ever of 50 cents.
My grandma made the best cinnamon rolls, but since she’s not around and I had a cinnamon roll craving come over me, I knew I needed to figure something out. Working with yeast-based doughs is a kitchen fear I still need to tackle. Truth be told, I’ve never made traditional cinnamon rolls.
However, I thought that cinnamon bun style donuts was something I could handle.
And my hunch proved successful.
These donuts are baked but they are not cake, or dry the way that most baked or cake-style donuts are.
Not in the least.
They are actually pretty heavy, dense, and very moist. The texture reminds me of an underbaked muffin-top in some ways. Gooey and thick, not light, airy or fluffy.
The flavor is what you’d expect from a cinnamon bun. There’s cinnamon, sugar, brown sugar, melted butter.
And frosting. I paired the donuts with a vanilla cream cheese glaze that makes you want to dive in and bathe in it. I actually like a little donut with my frosting. A little coffee with my cream. Can you relate?
No donut pan? I’m sorry. You can buy one for $8 bucks at BB & B with a coupon or $10 without a coupon. You’ll be happy you did.
And if you really don’t want to do that, you can make these donuts as muffins in a muffin pan. I tried that with the leftover batter. The recipe yields what would be 7 donuts in my donut pan but rather than waiting for my one donut pan to come out of the oven, I made the remaining batter into two small muffins in my muffin pan. I baked the muffins for about 15 minutes and they turned out just dandy.
The whole donut recipe from start to finish, including making them, cooling, glazing, and doing the dishes is 30 minutes. That’s success.
But the fact that they remind me of Cinnabons is the best.
The recipe yields 6-7 donuts and we polished off 5 at once, right out of the oven.
Bu there was that one, lone, straggler donut. The next day, that straggler had become the perfect sponge for the cream cheese glaze.
Soaking up all that magical stuff and getting even heavier in weight and more full-bodied with flavor, which is just the way I like my baked goods: heavy, rich, dense, and intense.
Couldn’t think of a better way to Christen my new donut pan than with these.
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Baked Cinnamon Bun Donuts with Vanilla Cream Cheese Glaze
Ingredients
Donuts
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 3 tablespoons light brown sugar, packed
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon, add more if you like cinnamon or want a stronger ‘cinnamon bun’ taste
- ½ teaspoon salt, optional and to taste
- 6 tablespoons buttermilk
- 1 large egg
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
Vanilla Cream Cheese Glaze
- ½ cup+ confectioners’ sugar
- 1 to 2 tablespoons cream cheese, softened
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon+ cinnamon
- splash Milk, Half & Half, Cream, Heavy Cream, vegan milk
Instructions
- Donuts – Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees and lightly grease or spray a Nonstick 6-Cavity Donut Pan with cooking spray. Or, use a muffin pan.
- In a large bowl, mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and optional salt.
- Add buttermilk, egg, vanilla and melted butter. Whisk to combine.
- Use a pastry bag fitted with a large round tip (or a Ziploc bag with a corner cut off) to pipe the batter into a 6-donut pan. Or just be extra neat and do this with a spoon (my preference).
- Bake 8 to 11 minutes, or until doughnuts spring back when touched are are set. Donuts will not be golden brown, but should be springy. Allow to cool slightly before removing from pan, about 5 minutes.
- Vanilla Cream Cheese Glaze – While donuts are baking or cooling, make the glaze by combining powdered sugar, cream cheese, vanilla extract, cinnamon, with a small splash milk. Whisk to combine, adding the milk as necessary, until desired consistency is achieved.
- Dip the donuts into the glaze. Donuts are best fresh, but will keep airtight at room temp for up to 3 days.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
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Yum, these look so great and I’m not even a doughnut lover!
Quick question for you as you are one of my favourite food photographers to ask – when the light gets darker earlier in winter, how do you photograph meals? I know you mainly photograph baked goods so maybe you just choose to shoot them earlier in the day, but I am struggling with this. I have pre-made dinners on some days when I’m working from home so I can photograph them in the light but then they’re not as fresh when I eat them which seems a bit of a bummer! So just wondering how to avoid having to use artificial lighting, or perhaps there’s just no way around this lol! Love the shots here, so textured :)
Anna this is SUCH a great question and I’ve addressed bits and pieces of it before and also mused out loud with friends about the conundrum.
One reason I do love dessert recipes is that they can be made ahead, there is no pressure to “get dinner on the table” and take the picture while hungry family members are waiting and the light is bad, anyway. I am pretty sure some bloggers make meals ahead of time and photograph in the afternoon; not really a day-to-day practical solution for me.
Also this lighting kit is decent but a pain to take up and down (Kath has it too and she says she fast with hers…me..not so much)
https://www.loveveggiesandyoga.com/2011/03/ordering-online.html
And you need Lightroom or editing software. If you’re in school, it’s about a hundred bucks. Worth every penny. What you can’t do with real light, as long as the pics are semi decent, you can usually make them much better with LR.
Good luck!
Thanks so much for the info! I really appreciate it and will check out Lightroom – not a student sadly but it might be worth the full price anyway. I definitely want to check out a lighting kit; I bet they are a pain but maybe there’s even an area of my bedroom I could leave it up for a while at a time at least…just with working full-time it’s impossible to be prepared enough to make meals in advance and with the hour about to go back that’s only going to get worse as it gets dark earlier and earlier!
Thanks for the link; can’t wait to check it out…I was so disappointed with my yummy and gorgeous stuffed mushrooms – the photos were just terrible because of darn artificial lighting and shadows…!
These look insanely delicious!
My hips grew an inch just looking at those things! Cinnabon is where it’s at!
dense and moist > airy and cakey ! These look beautiful. I can literally smell that tantalizing cinnabon smell that wafts half way down the mall just by looking at these and hearing your stories.
you know those mall smells then too, eh? :)
These look amazing!! I really need to jump on the donut bandwagon. :) I LOVE cinnamon and still get tempted every time I pass their stand at the mall or airport!
thanks, Kristi. Yes, jump on!
I’m going to!
oops – that was supposed to be ‘cinnabon’ not ‘cinnamon’ but I’m pretty sure you knew that ;)
I LOVE a good cinnamon roll… and I love the smell of my kitchen after I make them! great flavor idea for a doughnut!
I’ve never had a cinnabon but I’ve made them at home when I was a little girl! I’ve never made donuts though !
My grandmother used to make donuts often when we were kids – fried of course. I probably haven’t had a donut in about 17 years – since I worked at a bakery. I’m sure I’ve told you the story. Let’s just say I ate my weight and then some in donuts. But those actually look appealing to me – or maybe I’m just smelling cinnabon ;-)
I made a cinnabon bun recipe a couple of weeks ago but haven’t been able to post it because of the power outage here! :(
Cinnamon bun donuts though? Simply adorable (and look so yummy!) :)
I can’t believe the power outage has been so long!!
Wow, Averie. I cannot wait to make these! Your photos in the post are particularly outstanding. :)
Ok I actually hated my pics. Seriously. I had tons and tons to choose from and nothing was working. The frosting and the shininess, my camera was not focusing as well as I thought it was…til after I put them on my computer and the photo shoot (and donuts) were done!
I know you take gorgeous pics…not sure if that ever happens to you or not where certain foods, i.e. frosting, salad dressing, whipped cream, etc…reflective foods, cause this horrible blur thing to be going on. Anyway…thank you. I needed to hear your sweet compliment :)
wow! the broken-apart donuts look sooooo good, I can practically taste how dense and moist they are… yum yum (food porn!)
Thanks, Alix!
Drooling over here! I love cinnabons and I love donuts. Match made in heaven :)
Cinnamon buns are one of my favorite things on Earth! I would love one right now.
Now it is NECESSARY for me to have a donut pan…
Wowza!!!!
HOLY YUM! Delicious! Who doesn’t love a donut AND a cinnamon roll into one! :-)
I actually really dislike cinnamon (I know, I know!) but would love to make these with ginger or nutmeg or something! What a great use of your donut pan and the pictures are wonderful!