Homemade apple cinnamon rolls combine soft and buttery cinnamon rolls with a warmly spiced apple filling and sweet salted caramel icing. You can prepare them the night before, making these a wonderful choice for fall weekends, Thanksgiving, or holiday breakfasts.
This recipe is brought to you in partnership with Red Star Yeast.
I originally published this recipe in 2017 and have since updated it with new photos, additional success tips, and one small but helpful step: pre-cooking the apples before adding them to the filling. Giving the apples a quick head start on the stove ensures they’re perfectly tender inside the baked rolls.
These homemade apple cinnamon rolls are essentially the best parts of apple pie and homemade cinnamon rolls rolled into one delicious breakfast treat. The rolls bake up soft and fluffy with gooey centers, golden brown edges, plenty of cinnamon-spiced apples, and a generous drizzle of salted caramel icing.
The dough is rich and buttery, but very manageable. And while homemade cinnamon rolls take some time because the dough needs to rise twice, most of that time is hands-off. You can also prepare the rolls the night before and bake them fresh in the morning.
Are You a Yeast Beginner?
If you’re new to baking with yeast, my Baking with Yeast Guide is a wonderful resource for all bread beginners!
Why You’ll Love These Apple Cinnamon Rolls
- Soft, buttery dough: This is a rich yeast dough that bakes up fluffy and tender.
- Plenty of apples: Pre-cooking the apples helps them soften before they’re rolled up with brown sugar and cinnamon.
- Salted caramel icing: A little homemade salted caramel takes the simple vanilla icing to another level.
- Make-ahead friendly: Prepare the rolls the night before, refrigerate, and bake them fresh in the morning.
One reader, Alice, commented: “Awesome recipe! I followed the overnight directions and they turned out so soft, gooey, and moist. My family absolutely adored these rolls, and many went to have seconds (and even thirds!!). Recipe was also easy to follow for someone with limited experience with yeast...★★★★★”
Another reader, Nicole, commented: “This recipe is a keeper. Came out perfect. My family asked me to do another batch! ★★★★★”
Ingredients for Apple Cinnamon Rolls
The dough for these apple cinnamon rolls is a rich dough, meaning it’s made with enriching ingredients like milk, butter, and eggs. These ingredients produce a soft, tender bread with plenty of buttery flavor. It’s similar to the doughs we use for dinner rolls and glazed doughnuts.
You need 7 ingredients for the dough:
- Milk: Whole milk produces the best flavor and texture, but lower-fat or nondairy milk can work in a pinch.
- Yeast: You can use active dry or instant yeast. I recommend Platinum Yeast from Red Star, an instant yeast blended with natural dough improvers.
- Sugar: Sugar feeds the yeast and helps tenderize the dough.
- Eggs: Add richness and structure.
- Butter: Adds flavor and keeps the dough soft and rich.
- Salt: Essential for flavor.
- Flour: All-purpose flour provides the dough’s structure.
And just a few more ingredients:
- Filling: Butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, and apples
- Glaze: Confectioners’ sugar, vanilla extract, milk, and salted caramel
SUCCESS TIP
What Are the Best Apples for Cinnamon Rolls?
Use a firm apple that holds its shape when cooked. Granny Smith, Honeycrisp, Pink Lady, or a combination of your favorite baking apples all work well. If you’re interested in learning more, see my guide to the best apples for baking.
Peel and thinly slice or finely chop the apples before you begin. We’ll give them a quick head start on the stove before adding them to the filling, which helps ensure they’re perfectly tender in the baked rolls.
How to Make Apple Cinnamon Rolls
Making cinnamon rolls from scratch takes some time because the dough needs to rise twice, but most of that time is hands-off. You can make and bake the rolls in one day, prepare them the night before, or freeze the cinnamon rolls to prep even further ahead.
Prepare the dough: After the dough comes together in the mixing bowl, it’s time to knead. If you have a stand mixer with a dough hook, you can use that for this step, or you can knead the dough by hand.
See my How to Knead Dough video tutorial if you need extra help with this step:
Let the dough rise: The dough rises in about 1–2 hours. During this time, you can get your filling ingredients ready and quickly pre-cook the apples.
Why pre-cook the apples? This extra 5-minute step makes a big difference. Over the years, some readers have commented that the apples were still a bit crunchy after baking, so I added this brief step to give them a head start. Simply cook the apples in a skillet with a splash of water until they begin to soften. This helps ensure they’re perfectly tender by the time the cinnamon rolls are baked through.
Shape and fill the apple cinnamon rolls: Punch down the risen dough, then roll it into a 12×18-inch rectangle.
Spread the butter on top and sprinkle evenly with the brown sugar and cinnamon. Scatter the pre-cooked apples over the filling, tightly roll up the dough, and cut into 12 rolls.
2nd rise: Arrange in a greased or lined 9×13-inch pan and cover to let rise one more time.
The rolls will be puffy:
Bake until the rolls are lightly browned. About halfway through the bake time, I like to cover the rolls loosely with aluminum foil so the tops don’t brown too much before the centers have a chance to bake through.
Drizzle with icing: Whisk all of the icing ingredients together and drizzle over the warm rolls.
You Have Icing Options
My favorite topping for these apple cinnamon rolls is the salted caramel icing included in the recipe below. It’s a simple vanilla icing with a couple spoonfuls of homemade salted caramel mixed in. The caramel + apple + brown sugar + cinnamon combination is hard to beat.
But you have plenty of other delicious options:
By the way, if you can’t get enough of apples and cinnamon for breakfast, try my apple cider French toast next!
Apple Cinnamon Rolls Tools
Description
Soft homemade apple cinnamon rolls filled with buttery brown sugar, cinnamon, and tender apples, then topped with sweet salted caramel icing. Prepare them the night before for an extra-special fall or holiday breakfast. You can also freeze the cinnamon rolls; see instructions below.
- Prepare the dough: Whisk the warm milk, 2 Tablespoons of sugar, and the yeast together in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a dough hook attachment. Cover and allow mixture to sit for 5–10 minutes or until foamy on the surface. If you do not own a mixer, you can do this in a large mixing bowl and in the next step, mix the dough together with a large wooden spoon/silicone spatula. It will take a bit of arm muscle. A hand mixer works, but the sticky dough repeatedly gets stuck in the beaters. Mixing by hand with a wooden spoon or silicone spatula is a better choice.
- Add the remaining sugar (1/2 cup or 100g) and the butter and beat on medium speed until the butter is slightly broken up. Add about 1 cup (125g) of the flour, the eggs, and salt, and beat on low speed for 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, then add the remaining flour. Beat on medium speed until the dough comes together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl, about 2 minutes. Dough will be soft. If it seems too sticky and clings to the sides of the bowl instead of forming a rough mass around the dough hook or spoon, add more flour, 1 Tablespoon at a time, and continue to mix until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl but is still moist and tacky. If it feels dry and crumbly, add more milk, 1 teaspoon at a time, mixing well after each addition.
- Knead the dough: Keep the dough in the mixer and beat on low speed for an additional 5–8 full minutes, or knead by hand on a lightly floured surface for 5–8 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 feel smooth, supple, and elastic. 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.
- 1st Rise: Lightly grease a large bowl with oil or butter (or use nonstick spray). Place the dough in the bowl, turning it to coat all sides. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a clean kitchen towel. Allow the dough to rise at room temperature for 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours or until doubled in size. (I always let it rise on the counter and it takes about 2 hours. For a tiny reduction in rise time, see my answer to Where Should Dough Rise? in my Baking with Yeast Guide.)
- Pre-cook the apples: While the dough finishes rising, place the chopped apples in a skillet with 1 Tablespoon water. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes, or until the apples are beginning to soften. Remove from the heat and set aside to cool slightly while you roll out the dough.
- Grease the bottom and sides of a 9×13-inch baking dish (glass or metal) or line it with parchment paper.
- Roll out the dough: Punch down the dough to release the air. Place dough on a lightly floured work surface and, using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll dough into a 12×18-inch rectangle. Make sure the dough is smooth and evenly thick. If the dough keeps shrinking back as you roll it out, cover it lightly and let it rest for 10 minutes to relax the gluten, then continue rolling.
- Fill the rolls: Spread the softened butter all over the dough. The softer the butter is, the easier it is to spread in this step. (Microwave it for a few seconds to soften if needed.) In a small bowl, mix the brown sugar and cinnamon together, then sprinkle evenly over the butter. Scatter the pre-cooked apples evenly over the filling. Tightly roll up the dough to form an 18-inch-long log. If some filling spills out, sprinkle it on top of the roll. With an extra-sharp knife, cut into 12 even rolls, about 1.5 inches wide. Arrange in the prepared baking pan.
- 2nd Rise: Cover the pan and allow the rolls to rise until puffy, about 1 hour. (Or use the overnight option in the Notes below.)
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (177°C).
- Bake for about 26–29 minutes or until they are lightly browned on top, rotating the pan halfway through. If the tops are browning too quickly, loosely tent aluminum foil over the top of the pan. Remove pan from the oven and place pan on a cooling rack for about 10 minutes while you make the icing.
- Make the icing: Whisk the confectioners’ sugar, vanilla, milk, and warmed salted caramel together until smooth. Drizzle over the warm rolls and serve.
- Cover leftover frosted or unfrosted rolls tightly and store at room temperature for up to 2 days or in the refrigerator for up to 5 days.
Notes
- Make Ahead Instructions – Overnight: To prepare the night before serving, prepare the rolls through step 8. Cover the rolls and refrigerate for 8–12 hours. (16 hours max. 8–12 hours is best, but 16 hours is OK if absolutely needed. Do not exceed 16 hours.) The next morning, remove from the refrigerator, keep covered, and allow to rise for 1–2 hours at room temperature before continuing with step 10.
- Make Ahead Instructions – Freezing: You can freeze cinnamon rolls for up to 3 months, and I recommend a few different methods for freezing cinnamon rolls. The first method is to freeze them after shaping, before they’ve had their 2nd rise (step 8). Thaw in the refrigerator overnight, then let rise for 1.5–2 hours at room temperature before baking. The second method is to par-bake the risen rolls for 10 minutes, let cool completely, then cover and freeze. Thaw in the refrigerator overnight, then let sit at room temperature for 30 minutes before baking. Finish baking for 15–20 minutes. You can also freeze fully baked cinnamon rolls. See How to Freeze Cinnamon Rolls for more details about all of these methods.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Stand Mixer or Glass Mixing Bowl and Silicone Spatula / Wooden Spoon | Rolling Pin | 9×13-inch Glass Baking Pan or Metal Baking Pan | Cooling Rack | Whisk
- Milk: I recommend using whole milk for the best, richest-tasting dough. You could also use buttermilk. Reduced-fat, low-fat, or nondairy milk works in a pinch. Do not use nonfat milk.
- Yeast: I always use Platinum Yeast from Red Star, an instant yeast. You can use an active dry yeast instead, if needed. The rise times could be slightly longer. Reference my Baking with Yeast Guide for answers to common yeast FAQs.
- Other Icing Options: Instead of the caramel icing, you can top the rolls with cream cheese icing from giant cinnamon rolls, maple icing from maple cinnamon rolls, simple vanilla icing, brown sugar icing from pumpkin donuts, or skip the icing and drizzle the warm rolls with salted caramel.
- Gluten Free: We have not tested this recipe with gluten-free flour, so we are unsure of the results.
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