Rose Infused Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Frosting

The aroma of these is so divine! While baking, they fill your space with fragrant notes of rose and cinnamon. Who knew Cinnamon Rolls were so easy to make. I mean, honestly, the process is lengthy but only because there is a lot of downtime waiting for the dough to proof. The rolls themselves really are fairly simple. The frosting is hinted with a bit of pink that shows up very slightly in photos. Let's start with the frosting and then we'll get into the specifics of these cinnamon rolls.

Making the frosting pink

Of course, if you have it on hand you could use a couple drops of food coloring but I love the idea of using food to naturally color things. I achieved this using hibiscus flower. I bloomed 1 cup of dried hibiscus in 1 cup of hot water, steeped it for 5 minutes, then used 2 teaspoons of the highly concentrated liquid to color the frosting. The trick is not to add too much, otherwise, your frosting will be too thin.

A QUICK NOTE: Vegan cream cheese was used to make this frosting but the same amount of regular cream cheese works just as well.

How to begin making the cinnamon rolls

In order to make these come together before the first proof, all that needs to be done is add the ingredients and mix them together. A stand mixer is needed for this baing project! You'll want to make sure the ingredients are blended well and come off the sides of your mixer easily. You'll be able to tell if the mixture is too sticky if you have a difficult time removing it from the blade, if this is the case add a bit more flour and mix until just blended.

Using yeast for Rose Infused Cinnamon Rolls

Yeast is one of the most important components of making cinnamon rolls. Without the yeast, noting rises and it must be handled with care. For yeast breads, warm liquid is used to activate the cultures and in this case, rosewater will be used. A general rule of thumb for yeast is to be careful of the temperature. As long as you have some type of kitchen thermometer at home, you should be able to measure carefully. The temperature needs to be somewhere between 115-120 degrees so the yeast isn't killed. Before finishing up, set aside a separate bowl and coat it with a light oil, cooking spray, or butter.

When you're ready to remove the dough from the mixing bowl, give it a good kneading for 5 minutes. This will allow the gluten to be able to do its job. The dough should be nice and smooth when kneading is complete and at this point, the dough is ready to rise for the first time.

Putting the rolls together

Once the dough has been kneaded and proofed the first time, it's time to roll out the dough and spread on the buttery cinnamon mixture. Before doing this step, coat a 9 X 13 baking dish with butter. On a well-floured surface using a well-floured rolling pin, roll out the dough to about 24 inches x 15 inches. Use a spatula to spread the butter, cinnamon-sugar mixture on the entire surface of the dough. Starting with the long side of the dough, pick up the ends and roll until one long log has formed.

The final stages

This recipe makes 12 rolls so what I did was wipe off my spatula and used the edge of it to make a slight indentation in the middle of the roll. Then you can proceed to do this with the remainder of the roll until you see that 12 fairly even rolls will be made. Use a sharp knife to cut along the indentations. Once this is complete, place the rolls inside the baking dish; setting them aside in a warm place to proof for an additional 30 minutes. Once the final process is complete, all that's left to do is bake!

Enjoy these Rose Infused Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Frosting!!

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