Learn how to make a giant cinnamon roll cake using my easy 7 ingredient homemade cinnamon roll dough and swirling it into one large cake. Top with vanilla icing for an extra fun and indulgent breakfast, Easter, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, or Christmas brunch. Kids LOVE this! (Ok, adults too.)
This recipe is brought to you in partnership with Red Star Yeast.
If you find yourself with a giant cinnamon roll craving, bored and looking for a fun baking project, want an extra special Mother’s Day recipe or Father’s Day recipe, in need of new Easter brunch recipes that WOW, and/or need of a fun family-friendly breakfast, brunch, or dessert—I have just the recipe. I originally published this giant cinnamon roll cake several years ago and after making it 7,938x since then (approximation, of course), I decided to add some updates. It’s even better now!
Discover new pictures, extra recipe notes, and a video tutorial to help guarantee mega cinnamon roll success. Because if you’re going to make cinnamon rolls, you might as well make the best, most giant cinnamon roll ever. It’s impossible not to love this.
Why You’ll Love This Giant Cinnamon Roll Cake
- It’s a cinnamon roll the size of your head.
- Only requires 1 short rest and 1 long rise. (Not 2 rises!)
- No special tools required.
- Perfect for yeast beginners.
- Kids love to help roll it up.
- Fun to eat.
- Smothered in vanilla icing.
- I repeat: it’s a cinnamon roll the size of your head.
Perfect for Yeast Beginners
Do you love homemade cinnamon rolls, but are nervous to bake with yeast? I used to be this way too, but my easy cinnamon rolls completely changed that mindset. They only need 1 short rest period and 1 long rise, as opposed to two long rises like my overnight cinnamon rolls. Same fluffy cinnamon roll goodness, but in half the time. We’re using a very similar dough recipe for today’s cinnamon roll cake.
Here’s my #1 tip: I exclusively use Red Star Yeast in my bread baking and always recommend readers do the same. A dependable yeast like Platinum Yeast from Red Star pretty much guarantees dough success. This is an instant yeast, which helps cut down on rise time. Not only this, its careful formula strengthens your dough and makes working with yeast simple. And simple, especially when it comes to bread baking, is always good.
If you are craving cinnamon rolls right now, and just can’t wait for dough to rise, try these no yeast cinnamon rolls!
Video Tutorial: Giant Cinnamon Roll Cake
How to Make a Giant Cinnamon Roll Cake
- Make the dough: The ingredients are pretty standard: flour, sugar, salt, yeast, milk, butter, and egg. Heat the butter and milk together. Next, stir or beat the milk mixture into the dry ingredients, then add the egg. After mixing, your dough is ready to knead. You’ll notice I use all milk (no water) and *slightly* more butter than my easy cinnamon rolls recipe. I wanted a richer dough for this cinnamon roll cake. Same great results.
- Knead the dough: You can use your mixer or hands to knead the dough. Watch me knead the dough with my hands in the video tutorial above. I also have a separate in-depth How to Knead Dough video tutorial, if you need extra help with this step. When you’re finished kneading, cover the dough and let it rest for about 30 minutes. It won’t really rise during this time, but this allows the gluten to relax, which makes shaping much easier.
- Fill & shape the cinnamon roll cake: Here’s where the fun starts! Roll the dough out into a 15×12-inch rectangle. Spread the softened butter on top, then sprinkle with brown sugar and cinnamon. Using a sharp knife or pizza cutter, slice the dough into 6 horizontal strips. (Each are 15 inches long.) Roll up 1 strip and place in a greased pan. Coil the remaining 5 strips around the center roll, starting each strip at the end of the previous one to make one large cinnamon roll. Some of the filling may spill out as you pick up the strips, so just sprinkle it on top of the cake when you’re done shaping it.
- Rise: Let the shaped cake rise until doubled in size, about 1-2 hours. Remember, this is the only rise time required!
- Bake: After the giant cinnamon roll cake is puffy, bake until golden brown.
- Drizzle with vanilla icing: Whisk confectioners’ sugar, milk, and vanilla extract together until smooth. Drizzle all over the warm cake.
Cinnamon Roll Cake Step-by-Step Pictures
Mix the dry ingredients together. Heat the butter and milk together.
Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, add the egg, and beat into a slightly soft dough. (If you don’t have a mixer, you can make this dough by hand.)
Knead this dough, then let it rest for about 30 minutes.
Roll out into a large rectangle. Top with softened butter.
Sprinkle a mixture of brown sugar and cinnamon on top, then cut into 6 strips. Roll up 1 strip.
Place into your greased pan. Coil remaining strips around it.
Before baking, let the shaped cake rise until puffy:
3 Helpful Tips
- Best pan to use: I recommend a 9-inch round pie dish or 9-inch round cake pan.
- Keep it flat: While the giant cinnamon roll cake is baking, some spots may rise up more than other spots. That’s completely normal and expected from something this large! Simply remove the pan from the oven and, with the back of a spatula, press down the spots that are rising taller than others to help keep them even.
- Don’t have all morning to spend on this dough? Feel free to prep the dough the night before. This is a wonderful way to save time in the morning so you can wake up and eat sooner! See my make-ahead/overnight instructions in the written recipe below.
Let’s Dig In
To serve, cut the giant cinnamon roll like a traditional cake. Alternatively, you could uncoil it and let everyone have a go, sort of like you do with monkey bread. Hey, it’s ok to have fun with your food once in awhile. Now go make some cake!!
Baking with Yeast
Reference this Baking with Yeast Guide whenever you work with baker’s yeast. I include practical answers to all of your common yeast questions.
Giant Cinnamon Roll Cake
- Prep Time: 3 hours
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours, 30 minutes
- Yield: one 9-inch cake
- Category: Cake
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Learn how to make a beautiful, fluffy, and fun cinnamon roll cake using my kitchen-tested shortcut dough recipe. Review the video tutorial above and recipe notes below before beginning.
Ingredients
- 2 and 3/4 cups (344g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled), plus more as needed
- 1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 and 1/4 teaspoons Platinum Yeast from Red Star (1 standard packet)*
- 3/4 cup (180ml) whole milk
- 1/4 cup (4 Tablespoons; 56g) unsalted butter
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
Filling
- 1/4 cup (4 Tablespoons; 56 g) unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
- 1/4 cup (50g) packed light or dark brown sugar or granulated sugar
- 1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon
Vanilla Icing
- 1 cup (120g) confectioners’ sugar
- 2 Tablespoons (30ml) milk or heavy cream
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Make the dough: Whisk the flour, sugar, salt, and yeast together. Set aside. Heat the milk and butter together in the microwave until the butter is melted and the mixture is warm to the touch, between 100-110°F, 38-43°C. Pour the warm milk mixture into the dry ingredients. Add the egg. Using a handheld or stand mixer fitted with a dough hook or paddle attachment, or using a silicone spatula and mixing by hand, beat/mix the mixture until a soft dough forms. The dough is ready when it gently pulls away from the sides of the bowl. If the dough is pretty sticky, beat/mix in 2-4 extra Tablespoons of flour. (Keep in mind that you want the dough to remain on the softer side.)
- Knead the dough: Keep the dough in the stand mixer and beat for an additional 5 full minutes, or knead by hand on a lightly floured surface for 5 full minutes. (If you’re new to bread-baking, my How to Knead Dough video tutorial can help here.) If the dough becomes too sticky during the kneading process, sprinkle 1 teaspoon of flour at a time on the dough or on the work surface/in the bowl to make a soft, slightly tacky dough. Do not add more flour than you need because you do not want a dry dough. After kneading, the dough should still feel a little soft. Poke it with your finger—if it slowly bounces back, your dough is ready to rise. You can also do a “windowpane test” to see if your dough has been kneaded long enough: tear off a small (roughly golfball-size) piece of dough and gently stretch it out until it’s thin enough for light to pass through it. Hold it up to a window or light. Does light pass through the stretched dough without the dough tearing first? If so, your dough has been kneaded long enough and is ready to rise. If not, keep kneading until it passes the windowpane test.
- Form the dough into a ball on your work surface. Cover it with a clean towel, aluminum foil, or plastic wrap, then let it rest for 30 minutes at room temperature. Alternatively, the ball of dough can rest in a covered and lightly greased mixing bowl.
- Make the filling: After 30 minutes, use a rolling pin to roll the dough out into a 15×12-inch rectangle. Evenly spread the softened butter on top. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together and sprinkle it all over the buttered dough.
- Grease a 9-inch round pie dish or 9-inch round cake pan with butter or nonstick spray.
- Shape the cinnamon roll cake: See the video tutorial and my step-by-step photos above for a visual of this shaping step. Using a very sharp knife or a pizza cutter, cut the dough into six 2-inch wide strips. Roll up one strip and place it in the center of the pan. Coil the remaining 5 strips around the center roll, starting each strip at the end of the previous one to make one large cinnamon roll. Some of the filling may spill out as you pick up the strips, so just sprinkle it on top of the cake when you’re done shaping it.
- Loosely cover the cake with aluminum foil or plastic wrap and allow it to rise in a relatively warm, draft-free environment for 1-2 hours or until double in size. (Tip: Rising at room temperature is usually fine, but on a particularly cold day, heat your oven to 150°F (66°C). Turn the oven off, place the shaped cake inside, and keep the door slightly ajar. This will be a warm environment for your dough to rise. After about 30 minutes, close the oven door to trap the air inside with the rising dough. When it’s doubled in size, remove from the oven.)
- Bake: After the cake’s dough has doubled in size, preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C). Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown. If you notice the top or edges browning too quickly, tent the cake with aluminum foil. While the giant cinnamon roll cake is baking, some spots may rise up more than other spots. That’s completely normal and expected from something this large. Simply remove the pan from the oven and, with the back of a spatula, press down the spots that are rising taller than others to help keep them even. Return to baking.
- Remove the finished cinnamon roll cake from the oven and cool in the pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, make the icing.
- Make the icing: Whisk the icing ingredients together. If you want a thicker icing, whisk in more confectioners’ sugar. If you want a thinner icing, whisk in more milk or cream. Drizzle all over warm cake and serve.
- The cinnamon roll cake is best enjoyed the same day it’s made, but will remain fresh covered tightly for up to 4 days in the refrigerator.
Notes
- Overnight Instructions: The night before serving, prepare the cinnamon roll cake through step 6. Cover tightly and refrigerate for 8-12 hours. The next morning, remove from the refrigerator and allow to rise on the counter, covered, for 1-2 hours before continuing with step 8.
- Freezing Instructions: Baked cinnamon roll cake can be frozen up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and warm up before enjoying. You can also freeze the unbaked cinnamon roll cake and here’s how: bake the cake in step 8 for only about 10 minutes. Cool completely, then cover tightly and freeze. To thaw and bake, take the cake out of the freezer and put into the refrigerator a few hours before you wish to serve it. Before serving, finish baking it.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand) | Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Rolling Pin | 9-inch Round Pie Dish or 9-inch Round Cake Pan
- Yeast: Platinum Yeast from Red Star is an instant yeast. You can use active dry yeast instead. If using active-dry yeast, whisk the yeast into the warm butter/milk mixture instead of into the dry ingredients. (If you forget to do this and add the active-dry yeast to the dry ingredients, the cake will still be fine– trust me!) The rise time will take a little longer if using active dry yeast. Reference my Baking with Yeast Guide for answers to common yeast FAQs.
- Icing: I originally topped this giant cinnamon roll cake with vanilla maple icing. Simply replace 1 Tablespoon of milk/cream with pure maple syrup. If desired for a coffee flavored icing, replace all of the milk/cream with strong brewed black coffee.
Can I sub half & half for the whole milk?
Hi Barbara, that should work in a pinch—same amount.
Hi. Any chance this can be made gluten free. My granddaughter is 11 and is an amazing cook/baker. Her family is gluten free. I am sure she would love to make this cinnamon roll cake. It looks amazing.
Hi Debbie, we haven’t tried this recipe with a gluten free flour, but let us know if you do! We recommend trying an all-purpose gluten free flour like Bob’s Red Mill or Cup4Cup over almond flour. Almond flour is quite different from all-purpose flour and isn’t always a 1:1 swap. If you give anything a try, let us know how it goes!
I just have to make this!
This cake is insanely good!! Going to make it again today 🙂
I made this today and unfortunately the centre was completely raw… where it was fully baked, it tasted delicious. Any suggestions how to fix it?
Hi Aida, it sounds like the middle simply needed more time to bake. For next time, if you find the edges are baking up faster than the center, you can tent the cake with aluminum foil. That will prevent the edges from over browning while allowing the middle to continue baking through. Hope this helps!
I’ve made this before and it was so good! One question though – if I’ll be busy the afternoon/night before and would like to make this a day (24 hrs) in advance (say prep one morning for the next morning) – that’s too long for the rolled dough to sit in the fridge before baking. What’s your suggestion? Finishing baking it, and then leave it at room temperature for the next day? Freezing it for just one day seems unnecessary…..
Hi Emily! Yes, we would just make it one day ahead of time. You can rewarm in the oven to your liking and add the glaze fresh.
We made this for my son’s birthday. It was a huge hit, not only because it was delicious, but also because it looks beautiful!
My question is, can I remove the cake from the pan after baking to serve it on a cake plate? And if so should I do it while the cake is warm or after it has cooled? Thank you — looks delicious and exactly what I was looking for for a bridesmaids’ brunch!
Hi Susan! You should be able to, we would let it cool first.
Can I make this gluten and dairy free? I would use 1:1 measure of gluten free A/P flour (King Arthur) and dairy free butter.
Update: I made this but used the filling from the birthday cake cinnamon rolls. Because it was difficult to pick up the strips of dough without all the filling falling out, I rolled one strip and then sorta held it and pressed it/rolled it down the length of the next strip, kind of like rolling a big snowball to make a snowman. The final result was impressive though I should’ve baked it a bit longer, the middle was pretty undercooked.
Could you use the birthday cake cinnamon roll filling for this, or would it be too crumbly to stay in place as you wrap the strips?
Hi Holly! We imagine that should work fine. The filling may fall off a bit as you’re assembling, but work slowly and tuck any fallen crumbles back into the roll before baking. Hope you enjoy it!
I followed this recipe exactly but added a little melted butter to the top and sides before it was rising for a full 2 hours. I came out beautiful and delicious!!! I high recommend.
Made for birthday breakfast, can’t wait to make again.
I have successfully made this recipe twice and brought it to small parties, such a hit!!! lLast time I used a little honey liquor in my icing, everyone raved
Delicious! I was worried it wouldn’t turn out after the shaping part but it did and yay yay yay! I made this today as the dad day cake with my littles. It was really good and easy to make! Thank you very much for this recipe!
This is such an amazing recipe. Delicious and cozy. Thank you Sally!
This cinnamon roll was delicious. I let it rise the second time covered all night, and it turned out really well. My whole family loved it! I will definitely be making it again.
This is incredible. It tastes amazing and looks delectable too. The only issue I have is that the outer rings get over cooked and the middle gets undercooked. Perhaps I need to lower the temp and cook longer.
This dough is easy to make, tender and delicious! After making the dough into a giant cinnamon roll cake one time, I now make the dough into eight individual rolls. They fit nicely into an eight inch square pan.
I made it!!!!!!!!!!
It was fun and easy to make!
I’m 14 years old and into yummy-easy-fun to make type of desserts!
This was good! Only my second time using yeast,it wasn’t hard to make. I was wondering if I could make this dough into sticky buns.
Hi Rose, so glad this recipe was a success for you! You could use this dough for sticky buns, or here is our recipe for maple pecan sticky buns.
Super fun. Super easy. SOOO good. Better than any other cinnamon roll recipe.
Such an amazing recipe!! My client wanted a tiered cake made of cinnamon rolls and this was perfect!!!
Amazing recipe! I loved every minute of making it, although it’s pretty ugly but yum!! Thank you
I want to thank you for answering my question on the Giant Cinnamon Roll Cake. I also will watch the video. Let you know how it turns out
Giant Cinnamon Roll Cake When I made my dough..it was very thin…I had to add about 2 extra cups of flour to make it form a dough. I ended up throwing it out and did not continue. What did I do wrong…I want to make it. I started out with 2 3/4 cup flour
Hi Nancy, you may need to mix in 2-4 extra Tablespoons of flour if the dough is pretty sticky, but 2 extra cups would be way too much.
I made this as a birthday cake for my husband as well. I made it the day before and left it unfrosted and put it in the refrigerator. I took it out the this morning and heated it in the oven and then topped it with cream cheese frosting (and sprinkles and a candle because it had to be festive) and it was a hit! I didn’t think it tasted stale or hard doing it this way. Thanks for the recipe!
I made this yesterday as a birthday cake for my husband and he loved it! I added raisins to his half though and he was very pleased )) I might use this to make regular cinnamon buns too))
How do I keep it fresh tasting and not dried out?
Hi Nan! The cinnamon roll cake is best enjoyed the same day it’s made, but will remain fresh covered tightly for up to 4 days in the refrigerator (it will lose some of its softness).
This is LEGIT! I’ve always wanted to make something like this, but have been too intimidated. However, that’s no longer the case after successfully making this amazing recipe!!! Sally, thank you for the video, the step by step photos, and for the CLEAR instructions!!!!! You make everything so easy to understand, and you have helped me to become a more confident baker. I’m so thankful for your recipes and for the time you have poured into this business.