Baked Cinnamon Bun Donuts with Vanilla Cream Cheese Glaze

Do you like cinnamon buns?  Brownie points if you love Cinnabon cinnamon rolls like I do?  If you’re a cinnamon roll fan, you’re going to love these donuts.

Really, who doesn’t love a cinnamon roll?

Warm baked dough that’s sweet, dense, cinnamony and sugary, ooey gooey, with frosting everywhere.

Yes, please.

I worked at the mall when I was in high school and between Panda Chinese food, Mrs. Field’s Cookies, and Cinnabons, I ate more sodium, grease, and sugar than should be legal or is good for the complexion.  But hey, you’re only 16 and working next to the food court once.

I have such fond memories of Cinnabons.  The dense texture of them, the flavors of the cinnamon, sugar, and melted butter, the warm dough, and that cream cheese frosting.

I always ordered extra frosting and it was 50 cents for that extra cup of frosting but when you’re in high school working at a minimum wage job, you notice the price of tea in China the price of extra frosting.  But best use ever of 50 cents.

My grandma made the best cinnamon rolls, but since she’s not around and I had a cinnamon roll craving come over me, I knew I needed to figure something out.  Working with yeast-based doughs is a kitchen fear I still need to tackle.  Truth be told, I’ve never made traditional cinnamon rolls.

However, I thought that cinnamon bun style donuts was something I could handle.

And my hunch proved successful.

These donuts are baked but they are not cake, or dry the way that most baked or cake-style donuts are.

Not in the least.

They are actually pretty heavy, dense, and very moist.   The texture reminds me of an underbaked muffin-top in some ways.  Gooey and thick, not light, airy or fluffy.

The flavor is what you’d expect from a cinnamon bun.   There’s cinnamon, sugar, brown sugar, melted butter.

And frosting.  I paired the donuts with a vanilla cream cheese glaze that makes you want to dive in and bathe in it.  I actually like a little donut with my frosting.  A little coffee with my cream.  Can you relate?

No donut pan?  I’m sorry.  You can buy one for $8 bucks at BB & B with a coupon or $10 without a coupon.   You’ll be happy you did.

And if you really don’t want to do that, you can make these donuts as muffins in a muffin pan.  I tried that with the leftover batter.  The recipe yields what would be 7 donuts in my donut pan but rather than waiting for my one donut pan to come out of the oven, I made the remaining batter into two small muffins in my muffin pan.  I baked the muffins for about 15 minutes and they turned out just dandy.

The whole donut recipe from start to finish, including making them, cooling, glazing, and doing the dishes is 30 minutes.  That’s success.

But the fact that they remind me of Cinnabons is the best.

 

 

These also got better a day later.  The recipe yields 6-7 donuts and we polished off 5 at once, right out of the oven.

Bu there was that one, lone, straggler donut.  The next day, that straggler had become the perfect sponge for the cream cheese glaze.

Soaking up all that magical stuff and getting even heavier in weight and more full-bodied with flavor, which is just the way I like my baked goods: heavy, rich, dense, and intense.

So if you are a fan of that and want to make a batch and can imagine you or your family keeping your mitts off them for a day, this is one of those gets better the next day recipes.  Like chili.

But these are way better than chili.

Couldn’t think of a better way to Christen my new donut pan than with these.

Questions:

1. Do you like cinnamon rolls?  Or Cinnabon’s?

I know there will be people who will say “I’ve never had a Cinnabon”.

In many ways, you’re lucky because once you do, every other cinnamon roll you’ll ever try will likely be sub-par.

In another sense, it’s one of those items you just have to try, at least once, and I’m 99% positive you will deem them to be the holy grail of cinnamon rolls.   Make sure you order that extra frosting on the side.  Best 50 cents you’ll ever spend.

2. Have you ever made donuts at home?

I kept putting off buying a donut pan and I’m not sure why.  I realized making donuts is easy and fast.  They cook faster than muffins and there’s just something fun about eating homemade donuts.  It feels so decadent.

I’ve convinced Scott and Skylar that these are harder to make than they really are because otherwise I have a feeling I’d be making these all the time.  I mean, we’ve gotta save room for Snickers Bar Stuffed Chocolate Chip Cookies or homemade Butterfinger Bars, right?

I also have played around a couple times with my Cake Pop Maker.  Haven’t used the Donut Maker yet, though.  Making donuts the real way is so easy not sure if I “need” the makers, but they were cheap thrills.  Still trying to perfect some recipes.

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