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 banana 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
- 3/4 cup whole milk warm 100-110F
- 1/4 cup honey 84 grams
- 1 small banana 100 grams
- 4 cups all-purpose flour 568g
- 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast *must be instant!
- 2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 10 tablespoons 1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter softened to room temperature, cut into 1-inch pieces, 142 grams
Filling
- 1 small overripe banana 100 grams
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 1/2 cup brown sugar 100 grams
- 1/3 cup white sugar 66 grams
- 3 tablespoons unsalted butter melted, 42 grams
Frosting
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter softened, 113 grams
- 4 oz cream cheese 113 grams
- 3 cups powdered sugar 339 grams
- 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
- 3 tablespoons heavy cream
Instructions
Dough
- Prepare a large bowl with nonstick spray or a light coat of oil and set aside (to will be for the dough to rise in).
- In a separate large bowl, combine the eggs, milk, and honey. Mix with a whisk or fork to combine. In a small separate bowl or ramekin, thoroughly mash banana until there are no chunks and the mixture is smooth.
- Add the mashed and smooth banana to the eggs, milk and honey. Mix again until homogenous.
- Add all of the dry ingredients (flour, yeast, and salt) to the bowl of a stand mixer. Attatch to the standmixer and fit the mixer with the paddle attatchment.
- Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients in the standmixer and mix on medium speed to combine. Let dough mix for until shaggyt dough forms, about 3 minutes and then add the butter, one tablespoon at a time, pausing after each addition so the butter can incorporate. Once all the butter is added. increase the speed to medium and beat for another 2-3 minutes until dough is sticky but smooth.
- 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
- Brown the butter- 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, it should be solid but softened.
- When the butter is cool, add cream cheese and mix with an electric mixer until smooth. This will take a few minutes to combine.
- Next, add in powdered sugar and salt. Mix with a hand mixer until light and fluffy! Lastly, add in the heavy cream and beat again with the mixer until smooth.
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.
I LOVE this recipe! Delicious, fluffy, soft, and just the right amount of banana flavor. You can’t shortcut a good cinnamon roll. Plus, if you cut the rolls and put in the 9×12 and let rise overnight in the fridge, you can stage them to be ready to be baked in the morning.
At times, the recipe could be easier to follow. The ingredients are not listed in order of use so I had to double check the instructions and ingredient list. I appreciate that weight in g are included for some ingredients, but I wish it was included for all ingredients in larger quantities!
Hi Erin! I am so glad to hear this!! Noted on the recipe clarity and grams. Full disclosure- this is one of the first recipes I wrote years ago and I am slowly working my way through the blog to fix some of the old ones. I added the grams, fixed the order and streamlined the instructions. I can definitely see how they were a bit wonky 🤣 . Appreciate you so much!! 😊
SO delicious!!! The extra work for the dough definitely pays off as this yields a super moist and fluffy bun. Only major issue is that banana measurements should be provided in grams because I left the filling in the fridge and it was superrrr liquid and no where near how solid a cinnamon roll filling should be- it spilled everywhere and I ended up hand rolling the buns covered in the filling instead of inside.
The dough came out very bread like and not soft and fluffy but it was pretty moist before baking so I’m not sure what went wrong if anything but it tasted nice
3 cups of powdered sugar for the frosting, that’s a lot!?
THESE ARE SO GOOD‼️😚
I usually don’t write reviews but these were toooooo goood to skip out.
Also, whenever there is butter involved, I brown it because BROWN BUTTER IS SUPERIOR ‼️ (and yes I always let it cool down before proceeding with the recipe)
Also, heavy cream is listed in the frosting ingredient list but omitted in the steps but I added it in anyways after combining the butter and cream cheese together;
I cut down some icing sugar AND IT WAS AMAZING
LOOOOOOVe this Banana Cinnamon Roll!!! Might even sell it at the Christmas Market
LOTS OF LOVE,💗
@RACHEL_BANANABREADS
This recipe made me a cinnamon person. These are delicious. I’ve made it probably 5 times now. As other comments state, filling can get runny and leak out. So you don’t have really crisp swirls when cutting it. Who cares. The end result are pillowy soft and so good, almost like a pancake. I’ve made these for guests and they still talk about it.
On day 1, I make the dough at night, day 2 is roll,shape,cut, day 3 bake.
Looks yummy
9kn7m5
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.