Quick No Yeast Cinnamon Rolls 40 Minutes

You know when you wake up and think, “I wish I could have homemade cinnamon rolls right now,” and then you remember you have to wait a million hours for dough to rise and you cry into your boring bowl of cereal? …No? Just me? I’ve been on a quest to develop a recipe for quick cinnamon rolls that maintain all the flavor and fluff without the patience and work that yeast requires. (Because, in reality, I’m tired but still want to bake something. LOL.) My homemade cinnamon rolls take about 4 and 1/2 hours, or need to be prepped the night before. Even my easy cinnamon rolls require patience, rising, and kneading. So if you want from-scratch cinnamon rolls NOW, make today’s no yeast biscuit version.

These No Yeast Cinnamon Roll Biscuits Are:

Convenient if you’re busy and tired but still want homemade cinnamon rolls. Ready in less than 45 minutes. Soft, fluffy, and buttery. NOT dense! Surprisingly not dense at all! Packed with sweet brown sugar and cinnamon spice. Slathered with tangy cream cheese icing. Perfect as a special breakfast without all the work and waiting.

Plus, there’s NO kneading, NO rising, and the dough comes together in just 1 bowl. And you can bake them in a pie dish, cake pan, or even as cinnamon roll muffins. This recipe is dynamite.

Key Ingredients & Why This Recipe Works

Baking soda, melted butter, and buttermilk are also key ingredients in my no yeast bread recipe.

Baking Powder & Baking Soda: Since we’re skipping yeast, we need to replace it with another leavener. (Unless you want to eat cinnamon hockey pucks for breakfast!) I tried the dough with only baking powder at first, but quickly learned the dense rolls benefitted from a little baking soda as well. With the crutch of baking soda, the next batch browned a little nicer and fluffed up more. More Melted Butter: Like my chocolate chip cookies, this recipe excels with melted butter! The melted butter helps create a chewy bread-like texture, plus it seeps into every nook and cranny so you can really taste the buttery goodness. Compared with my regular cinnamon rolls recipe, I added a little extra butter for more flavor. Cold Buttermilk: Since we’re using a little baking soda, we need an acid in the dough. Buttermilk does the job, plus it also adds a little tang, a little fluff, and a little softness. (Like it does in pancakes!) And grab the buttermilk right from the refrigerator because cold milk keeps the otherwise soft and buttery dough workable. If you’re interested, I have plenty more on this topic in my Baking with Buttermilk post (including a DIY buttermilk substitute recipe).

After a few trials and errors, I was shocked with the final result. These no yeast cinnamon rolls taste similar to the yeasted version and only took me about 40 minutes total. Obviously they’re not as flaky and doughy as the traditional, but I don’t think anyone would EVER notice or complain that there’s no yeast. (My 10+ taste testers ooh’d and ahh’d without batting an eye!) Here are all of the ingredients you need for the dough & filling:

How to Make Quick No Yeast Cinnamon Rolls

You can go from craving to eating warm, gooey from-scratch cinnamon rolls in record time. Here’s how my recipe works:

Make the dough: Whisk the dry ingredients together, then add in the wet ingredients. The dough should be quite soft, but not overly sticky. Shape the cinnamon rolls: Roll the dough into a 10×14-inch rectangle. This measurement doesn’t need to be exact, so don’t stress. Spread butter on top and then sprinkle with cinnamon and brown sugar. Tightly roll up the dough and cut into 12 pieces. Place in a greased pan. Bake: Bake until the rolls puff up and look golden brown, about 22–26 minutes. Make the icing: While the cinnamon rolls bake, make the icing using cream cheese, butter, confectioners’ sugar, and vanilla extract. Eat: Slather the icing on your warm cinnamon rolls and enjoy!

Here are step-by-step photos so you know what to expect: The assembly steps are exactly like regular cinnamon rolls, only without the rise time. Before cutting, you can mark the 14-inch log with a knife to ensure you have 12 even rolls. That’s what I usually do:

Success Tip: Expect a Soft Dough

Do not incorporate more flour than you need in this dough. I want you to embrace a soft dough. Instead of mixing more flour INTO the dough to make it workable, use extra flour when shaping the rolls. If the dough is sticking to your counter and rolling pin as you work, dust it all with more flour. Bottom line: Mixing in more flour than you need could result in crumbly, dense rolls. Instead, use it when assembling the rolls.

Cream Cheese Frosting

This cream cheese icing uses a little more butter and a little less confectioners’ sugar than the icing I typically use on cinnamon rolls. But I love that it doesn’t use gobs of confectioners’ sugar; it’s a nice creamy, buttery, tangy blanket for your rolls. You could also try the maple version used on these pumpkin cinnamon rolls, or for a simpler topping, try this vanilla icing instead.

Can I Bake These as Cinnamon Roll Muffins?

Yes! If you love the slightly crusty, chewy exterior of a cinnamon roll that’s been baked closest to the edge of the pan, try baking these no yeast cinnamon rolls as muffins. After cutting your 12 rolls, place them in a greased standard 12-count muffin pan. Each roll gets that crusty edge all the way around, and they puff up beautifully when they bake. Such a fun recipe! If you’re on a roll (ha!), try these cinnamon roll cookies too. 😉