High Altitude Gingerbread Cinnamon Rolls
Soft and fluffy gingerbread cinnamon rolls with cozy spices, a hint of molasses, and vanilla bean cream cheese frosting.
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Stand Mixer with Dough Hook
Ingredients
Dough
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter
- ¾ cup whole milk or buttermilk
- 2 ¼ tsp (1 packet) yeast (instant/rapid rise or active dry)
- ¼ cup light brown sugar, divided
- 3 cups bread flour, spooned and leveled, (plus 1/4 cup for rolling)
- 1 tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- ¼ tsp ground nutmeg
- ¼ tsp ground cloves
- 2 tbsp old fashioned molasses (NOT blackstrap)
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 ½ tsp vanilla extract
- ½ cup heavy whipping cream (used in the muffin pan when you're ready to bake the rolls)
Filling
- 4 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
- ¾ cup light or dark brown sugar, lightly packed
- 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
Frosting
- 8 oz cream cheese, softened to room temperature
- 1 ½ cups powdered sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
Instructions
Dough
- Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat. Add the milk and stir. Warm the mixture just until it reaches between 110-115 degrees F.If it gets too hot, let it sit for a few minutes until it cools down to the correct temperature. It's important that you check the temperature – if it's too cold, it won't activate the yeast, and if it's too hot, it will kill the yeast.Remove from the heat, and stir in the yeast and 1 tablespoon of the brown sugar. Let sit for 10-15 minutes until it gets bubbly.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer, whisk the flour together with the salt and spices. Add the molasses, eggs, vanilla, the warm yeast mixture and the rest of the brown sugar. Stir together into a rough dough.
- Fit your mixer with the dough hook, and knead the dough on medium speed for 10 minutes, stopping to scrape the sides of the bowl several times. The dough will be soft, loose and sticky, and will not form a firm ball.
- Lightly spray a large bowl with nonstick baking spray. Scrape the dough into the bowl, and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Set the dough in a warm place to rise until doubled in size, which should take anywhere from 45-90 minutes.If your oven has a bread-proofing setting, you can use that to proof your dough. If not, let your oven preheat to the lowest setting, turn the oven off, and then set your dough inside to rise.
- Once the dough has doubled in size, place the covered bowl in the refrigerator to rest and chill overnight, or up to 24 hours. Since this is a soft dough, chilling the dough also makes it very easy to roll out the cold dough in the morning.
- In the morning when you're ready to bake your rolls, flour your work surface with 1/4 cup of flour. Turn the chilled dough out and dust with flour. Roll the cold dough out into a rectangle measuring about 15x22 inches.
Filling
- Melt the butter and use a pastry brush to brush it over the rectangle of dough, all the way to the edges.
- In a bowl, combine the brown sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle over the buttered dough.
- Roll up the dough into a log, keeping it as tight as you can. Using a gentle sawing motion with a sharp, non-serrated knife, cut the dough into 12 rolls.
Bake
- Grease a standard 12-cup muffin pan with butter or non-stick spray, then divide the cream between the cups, about 2 teaspoons of cream in each one.
- Place the rolls, cut side up, into the muffin pan, right on top of the cream. Cover loosely with a clean kitchen towel and set in a warm place to rest for 20 minutes.If you prefer, you can also bake your rolls in a 9x13 pan. Cinnamon rolls tend to be slightly more moist and gooey baked together in a pan, but baking them in a muffin pan will give them a cute round shape.
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven.
- Bake the rolls for about 18-20 minutes, until puffed and golden brown. (If baking them in a 9x13 pan, bake the rolls for about 22-25 minutes.)
- Immediately remove the hot rolls from the muffin pan, using a spoon to slide underneath the rolls to help lift them out of the pan. Set on a baking sheet while you make the frosting.
Frosting
- In a bowl, beat all the frosting ingredients, either by hand or with an electric mixer, until smooth.
- Spread the frosting on top of the warm rolls, and serve right away.
- This makes a generous amount of frosting, so if you like less, you can cut the frosting recipe in half.
Video
Notes
- Eggs: Your eggs will be too cold if you use them straight from the fridge, and the chill could prevent your dough from rising. Let them sit out for about an hour (or place the eggs in a glass of hot water) to warm up to room temperature before adding to your dough.
- 110-115 Degrees: It’s very important that you check the temperature of your melted butter and warmed milk. The amount noted here is not a suggestion; it’s essential to correctly activating your yeast. Too cold, and the yeast won’t be activated. Too hot, and it will kill the yeast.
- Leftover Rolls: Store the leftover rolls in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days. Re-warm in the microwave at 50% power to make them warm and soft.
- Video: Note that the video in today's recipe card is for instructional purposes, from the making of my original cinnamon rolls recipe, to demonstrate how to knead the dough and shape the rolls. It does not feature the specific spices or extra ingredients unique to today's recipe.
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