Do yourself a favor and make these cinnamon rolls today! Or really, you’ll miss out on the best cinnamon rolls ever. And don’t say I didn’t warn you! They are fabulous—so much flavor and fluffiness—they nearly melt on your tongue. We have our own cinnamon rolls in Holland named, “Zeeuwse Bolussen”. They’re good, but they can’t hold a candle to these.

This recipe was sent to me by an American friend. One of the perks to food blogging; people from all over the world email you the best recipes. I frowned when I scanned the ingredients list, though. Instant vanilla pudding mix? You’re kidding, right? We never add vanilla pudding to our pastry dough here. Heck, I didn’t even know if it was sold here. As it turns out it is, so I picked up a box and got to it. 

I love how these rolls are not overly sweet nor do they require three sticks of butter.

Rolls:

2 tbsp warm water
3 tbsp butter (2 oz)
4 tbsp instant vanilla pudding mix
1/2 cup warm milk
1 large egg
1/2 tbsp white sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups + 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
1 1/4 tsp instant or active dry yeast

Filling:

1/2 a cup brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
2 oz chopped up walnuts
2 or 3 tbsp butter

Frosting:

4 oz cream cheese 
4 tbsp confectioners sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract 
2 tsp milk

Directions:

Here’s 1/2 a cup of milk combined with 3 tbsp soft butter. I like to mix my milk and butter, not sure why. And there’s a lightly beaten egg (room-temperature).

Combine 1 1/4 tsp yeast with 2 tbsp warm water. I’m using instant yeast but am still using water. Clearly I’m a bit weird but I think we already established that long ago.

I wasn’t kidding about the vanilla pudding! See, here’s photographic evidence.

I popped the milk & butter in the microwave (maximum power) for about 30 seconds. Adding the yeast and the egg to my mixer bowl.

Add 1/2 a tsp salt, 1/2 a tbsp granulated sugar and 4 tbsp of the instant vanilla pudding mix to that. Wow, the pudding made it yellow alright.

Pour the milk and butter in. The butter will have melted.

Add your flour. once the dry and wet ingredients are combined, turn off the machine, throw a towel over it and let the dough rest for 15 minutes before kneading. It’ll be quite sticky now.

That gives you time to finely chop the walnuts.

Combine 1/2 a cup brown sugar with two tsp ground cinnamon.

Time to knead the dough. I gave mine an 8 minute cycle. Slowly the dough started to ball up. If your still looks sticky in the last, say, 2 minutes add some flour one tbsp at a time.

Let the dough rise for about an hour when using active dry yeast, punch it down and then continue with the recipe below!

Lightly butter a baking tray.

Transfer the dough to a floured counter or cutting board.

And start rolling. Form a rectangle.

Keep in mind that the thickness of the dough determines the structure of your rolls. The first time I made these, I didn’t roll the dough thin enough and it gave me these, more like cinnamon buns (quick shots taken at night). Really tasty, but I think I prefer the thinner cinnamon rolls.

Anyways.

Roll out the dough and lightly brush it with melted butter. You don’t want to drown it in butter, it just needs a thin layer to make the nuts and sugar stick to. I used roughly 2 tbsp butter.

Sprinkle the chopped walnuts on top.

Followed by the cinnamon sugar.

Roll it up and press the seams!

Now slice it. I turned it into 16 rolls. You can make thicker slices as well!

Transfer the slices to the baking tray. Give them a little room to rise, though. Place a towel over the tray and let them rise for an hour and a half.

I’m not a big fan of frosting in general and really feel they don’t need it. But since it was part of the recipe, I threw it in!

I combined 4 oz room-temperature cream cheese with 2 tsp milk, 1/2 a tsp vanilla extract, 4 tbsp confectioner sugar and stirred until smooth and creamy. The original recipe called for 2 tbsp butter, but I didn’t add them. Feel free to throw them into the equation.
 

The risen rolls. I kinda like how that sounds.

Bake them in a preheated oven at 350F (175C) for 15 to 20 minutes. I like them brown and crispy so I gave them the full 20 minutes (I once even gave them 25 minutes for extra crunch), if you want them lighter and fluffied you should probably stick to 15 mins. Drizzle the cream cheese frosting on top while they’re still warm.

 
They were brown and crispy on the outside, but light and fluffy on the inside. Perfect combination.

Oh. My. Word. These are utterly divine.