This gooey cinnamon roll pull apart is the most perfect breakfast. Calories don’t count when they taste this good!
Each Thanksgiving and Christmas we make a Cinnamon Roll Pull Apart for breakfast. Last year for Christmas I went to the store to purchase the pre-made rolls that I showed you here and I couldn’t find a single store that had them. I guess that was my bad for waiting until Christmas Eve to go shopping! but I, and the rest of the family was devastated. I decided that I wouldn’t break tradition just because of it and made them from scratch. WOW! They turned out amazing and I make them this way all the time now.
Now, on a side note, I have had a few people ask me before if there “REALLY” is a difference between salted and unsalted butter in a recipe. The answer is YES! It’s like asking if adding an extra teaspoon of salt to a recipe will make a difference. Have you ever made a recipe, cookie, cake, anything and when it was all done you realized it was just a little too salty? That’s most likely because you did’t get the unsalted butter! I don’t think people are realizing this when they buy their butter. So I want to educate you….you DO want to purchase and use unsalted butter from time to time!
Ok, now onto this AMAZING recipe!
- ⅓ cup warm water
- 2¼ tsp yeast
- ⅓ cup + ¼ tsp sugar
- 1⅓ cups milk warmed up
- ¾ cup unsalted butter (room temp)
- 1 egg
- 1½ tsp salt
- 4½ cups flour
- 2¼ cups brown sugar
- ground cinnamon
- ½ cups pecans (optional)
- combine ⅓ cup warm water, ¼ tsp sugar and 2¼ tsp yeast in a liquid measuring cup and stir using a whisk until yeast and sugar is fully dissolved. Let rest 5-10 minutes to activate the yeast.
- Place yeast mixture, warmed milk, ⅓ cup sugar, 5 tablespoons butter egg and salt into a large mixing bowl. Using the whisk attachment, beat until well combined. Then add 2 cups flour into mixture
- Switch to the bread attachent and ½ cup at a time, add the remaining flour on medium-low speed until fully combined. The dough will be slightly sticky but will pull away from the sides when finished combining (you may need to add/subtract an extra ¼ cup depending on your climate!)
- Place dough in a greased bowl and cover for 1½ hours until double in size. Then seperate into 2 section for rolling. Roll out on a floured surface until 12" wide and only ¼ inch thick.
- spread 2 tablespoons of butter on top of dough followed by a sprinkle of ground cinnamon, 1 cup brown sugar and ¼ cup pecans (optional). Pat the pecans down into the brown sugar to prevent from spilling while it's rolled. Starting at one end, roll from front to back into a tube.
- Slice into ½ inch sections.
- Repeat on the second section of dough.
- Place all sliced sections randomly into a greased bundt pan. Top all of it with last ¼ cup of brown sugar.
- Cover and let rest 45 minutes (*to make night before, see notes)
- Bake at 375 for 25-30 minutes
- To remove from the pan, place your place on top of the pan and then flip the whole thing upside down and it should fall out!
- Top with cream cheese frosting or glaze and pecans. Serve warm
- Store leftovers in an airtight container.
This is definitely our favorite around the Barker household!!
Do you have a tradition that you do each holiday?
I have never put whole cinnamon rolls into a bundt pan like that! YUM!
It’s super fun for the whole family to gather around and dig in!
Holy cow – this looks AMAZING. Seriously. Wow – that looks awesome! My pull-aparts never turn out pretty. They are probably my least fav thing to take picts of because they never look as pretty as they taste. You did a great job. Pinning for sure!
awe, you are way too nice. Thanks so much.
Vanessa I am drooling – this looks so good! We do have a tradition in our home for Christmas morning breakfast. I prepare cinnamon rolls the night before and as we are opening presents Christmas morning I throw them in the oven – so we have nice hot cinnamon rolls and I don’t have to miss anything. I like your idea of making them up in a bundt pan – maybe I will have to try that this year!
Oh man, i could totally picture Christmas morning from your comment. I don’t know if it can come soon enough. I LOVE Christmas and even more now that I have kids
What type of yeast is it that you used? If it was active dry can I substitute it with quick rise? Breads are my downfall, but I’d love to give this recipe a try.
I used quick rise but I have used both in the recipe. This is super easy and I have used it for bread, crescent rolls and cinnamon rolls. you’ll totally get it!
This looks beautiful and delicious!
Thanks hun
Those look beautiful and delicious! #client
Thanks so much. I may have gained 10 lbs over the weekend after making these…and it’s not even Thanksgiving yet!
These sound amazing!! Definitely pinning so I can try it later. Thanks for sharing!!
Let me know how you like them when you try them
That looks so good. I have a bundt pan I never use, but I will now! I am pinning!
pull that sucker out and get to baking!! really, this is the only thing I use the bundt pan for!
Am I missing something? The yeast mixture never gets added to anything? When and how does that take place?
Oh my goodness, how did I miss this. I’ve added it into the recipe. After the yeast activates you immediately add it to the other wet ingredients.
Hi, could you please tell me what the yield is on this? Like how many rolls will fill up one standard sized bundt pan?
I would say this recipe makes approximately 24 regular size cinnamon rolls, and I use all of them in the pan. But you can definitely do less. I’ve made a half recipe before and it works just as great.
Oh my goodness I can’t wait to make this – it looks awesome! I have been making my own bread for a while but I’m just starting to have a go at sweet bread and rolls. This looks so good that I have to try it!
Let me know how it turns out!! We absolutely love it at our house