Banana Cinnamon Rolls
These banana cinnamon rolls seemed blasphemous to my cinnamon roll traditionalist brother, but it is safe to say he came around after tasting them. The dough recipe is from Sarah Kieffer, with a slight adaptation of mine to add a banana. The result is a soft pillowy roll with a hint of banana in the dough, just a bit more in the cinnamon banana filling and a simple brown butter cream cheese frosting! Enjoy.
Banana Cinnamon Rolls with a brown butter frosting
These soft and gooey cinnamon rolls have just the right amount of banana in the dough and the filling. This dough recipe is adapted from Sarah Keiffer's "Soft and Gooey Cinnamon rolls". Topped with my brown butter cream cheese frosting, these are sure to be a crowd pleaser.
PRep Time30 minutes
Cook Time30 minutes
Total Time4 hours 30 minutes
Servings 12 rolls
Equipment
- 1 stand mixer
- 1 saucepan
- 1 9X13 pan
Ingredients
Dough
- 3 large eggs room temperature
- 1 small banana
- 3/4 cup whole milk warm 100-110F
- 1/4 cup honey
- 4 cups all-purpose flour 568g
- 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 10 tablespoons 1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter room temperature, cut into 1-inch pieces (142g)
Filling
- 1 small overripe banana
- 3 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/3 cup white sugar
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
Frosting
- 1 stick 113 grams unsalted butter
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 4 oz cream cheese
- 3 tablespoons heavy cream
- 1/2 tsp kosher salt
Instructions
Dough
- Grease a large bowl to prepare for dough.
- In a large bowl, combine the eggs, milk, and honey. In a separate bowl, thoroughly mash banana until there are no chunks and the mixture is smooth.
- Add banana to the eggs, milk and honey. Mix again until homogenous.
- Add all of the dry ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle. This is the flour, yeast, and salt.
- Turn stand mixer on low just to combine the dry ingredients.
- Add the egg mixture and mix on low. Let dough mix for one minute then add the butter, one tablespoon at a time.
- Then increase the speed to medium and beat the butter into the dough, until all the little butter pieces are incorporated, 1 minute. The dough will be sticky!
- Transfer the dough to the prepared bowl. Feel free to use a spatula or even greased hands to move the sticky dough.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let rise for 30 minutes.
- After 30 minutes, you will start a series of folds. First, place your fingers underneath the dough and gently pull the dough up and fold it back over itself. Turn the bowl and repeat this folding again. Continue 6 to 8 more times, until all the dough has been folded over on itself. Re-cover the bowl with plastic and let rise for 30 minutes. Repeat this series of folding 3 more times, for a rise time of 2 hours and a total of 4 foldings
- After all of the foldings, tightly cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or up to 72 hours.
Filling
- In a medium bowl, mix banana, cinnamon and sugars until completely smooth. Add in melted butter. Let sit in the refrigerator for 5 minutes so it is smooth enough to spread.
Frosting
- In a small saucepan over medium heat, add the stick of butter.
- Let butter melt and continue to stir with a nonstick spatula.
- The butter will begin to foam and sizzle around the edges. Keep stirring. Depending on your stove, in about 6-10 minutes the butter will turn golden brown. Once the butter is browned remove the pan from the heat and pour butter into a heat-proof bowl.
- Let butter cool to room temperature before proceeding with the frosting.
- When the butter is cool, add cream cheese and mix with an electric mixer until smooth. This will take a few minutes to combine as we are forcing the liquid butter to blend with the solid cream cheese.
- Next, add in powdered sugar and salt. Mix with a hand mixer until light and fluffy!
Assembly
- Flour a large work surface and remove dough from refrigerator.
- Remove dough from bowl and place onto work surface. The dough will be hard, but easy to work with. Knead the dough about 10 times and then shape dough into a ball, cover the top lightly with flour, and cover with a tea towel and let come to room temperature.
- Grease a 9×13-inch pan.
- Roll the dough into a 16 by 12-inch rectangle. Spread banana filling over entire rectangle.
- Starting at a long side, roll the dough into a tight cylinder. The tighter the cylinder, the more rolls, the more swirls!
- Pinch the seam gently to seal it and position the dough seam side down. Use a sharp knife to cut the dough into 12-equal pieces. Transfer the pieces to the prepared pan and place them cut side up. Cover the pan loosely with plastic wrap and let the dough rise until doubled, 1 to 1 1/2 hours.
- Adjust an oven rack to the middle position. Preheat the oven to 350F (180C). Remove the plastic and bake 27 to 32 minutes, rotating the pan halfway through, until the rolls are golden brown. While the rolls are baking, prepare the icing.
- Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool for 5 minutes. Top with the icing and serve.
This recipe is absolutely incredible. The “roll” part of the recipe took a lot longer than other cinnamon roll recipes I’ve made before but each step was worth it for making them perfectly soft and fluffy. Just unreal!!!
Incredible! My husband said these cinnamon rolls are one of the best things he’s ever eaten. The filling gets caramelized and the brown butter cream cheese frosting is heavenly. You have to make these!
I made these this weekend. They have a nice banana taste and are just as good without the frosting. I also used maple sugar instead of brown.
I let the filling sit for 5 mins but because I was Madam Antsy Pants, I should have let it set longer. As I rolled the dough, it was running out.
Because I also didn’t want to be a big fatty pants all week, I froze them. I took them out of the pan and put them upside down with the yummy goo on top, on a sil plat. I also scooped the frosting with my #60 and froze that too. I vac packed individuals in the Foodsaver.
I had to test the quality of a frozen one. I wrapped it in a wet paper towel and heated it in the microwave in 30 sec bursts 3x to heat up and then spread the frosting on. I didn’t feel there was any quality lost.