Mini Cinnamon Rolls or Lemon Poppy Seed Rolls
These mini cinnamon rolls are perfect for serving at break or tea time.
Mini Cinnamon or Lemon Poppy Seed Rolls
Makes: about 12 rolls per cup of flour or 4 rolls per regular roll, so 48-54 mini rolls
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Ingredients
1 Recipe Cinnamon Roll Dough
1 Recipe Caramel Pecan Sauce OR
1 Recipe Lemon Poppy Seed Filling & Glaze:
Lemon Poppy Seed Filling:
- 8 Tbsp butter (softened)
- 2 Tbsp lemon zest
- ¾ cup white sugar
- 3 Tbsp poppy seeds
Lemon Poppy Seed Glaze
- 8 Tbsp cream cheese (softened)
- 4 Tbsp butter (softened)
- 1 ½ cups powdered sugar
- ¼ tsp salt
- 2 Tbsp lemon juice (fresh is best)
- 1 Tbsp poppy seeds
Instructions:
- These mini cinnamon rolls are a variation on my roll recipe.Just follow the recipe for the dough, then after it's risen the first time, divide the dough in half and work with it in 2 batches.
- If you're making caramel sauce rolls, go ahead and make the sauce, pour it into a greased 9×13 pan, sprinkle the pecans over it, and set aside.
- Roll the dough out to 6-8 inches wide and 12-16 inches long (You don't want the dough to be paper-thin, otherwise it won't rise. However, you want it to be about half as thick as a normal roll would be – about 1/8-inch thick or so.)
- Brush and sprinkle liberally with the cinnamon roll filling or the lemon poppyseed filling, roll up very tightly (if you don't, they will rise lopsidedly), and cut into 1/4-1/3 inch rolls. *It works well to use a length of dental floss for this – slide it under the dough to the spot you want to cut, then begin to tie the floss around the dough and it will cut cleanly through.*
- Place the rolls in the greased 9×13 pan, touching each other. (You don't do this with a lot of recipes, but it keeps them from rising out instead of up.)
- Cover tightly and set in a warm place to rise until doubled – 30 minutes to 1 hour.
- Preheat the oven to 350° then bake for 18-20 minutes – it's better for these to be less done rather than over done. Since they're so small, they can dry out easily.
- If you made caramel rolls, place a platter over the pan and flip the pan upside down so the rolls drop onto the platter and the sauce drips between the rolls.
- If you made lemon poppyseed rolls, remove them from the pan and pour half of the glaze over them immediately. This lets the glaze drip between the rolls and soak in. Once they've cooled a bit, pour the rest of the glaze over them.
Notes:
Quantity: You can make approximately 10-12 rolls per each cup of flour in the recipe, which evens out to about 4 mini rolls per regular roll.
(These look like they could be baked in mini muffin tins, but they need to be baked in a 9×13 or 11×15 pan or else they will rise unevenly.)
Make Ahead: These are best served right out of the oven.
If you’re going to be serving these later in the day, you can prepare the rolls through rolling them up and placing them in the pan then cover tightly and freeze (for 1-2 weeks) or refrigerate (overnight). In the morning, pull them out and set them in a warm place to rise – 2 hrs or so. Then bake them for 20 minutes.
If you’re not going to have time to let them rise, it works really well to par-bake them. Follow the recipe through baking, but only bake for 10-12 minutes (you want them to be barely completely cooked, but not brown in the least (if they aren’t completely baked, they’ll shrivel up a bit, but if you cook them at all too long, they’ll become dry)). Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely. Then cover tightly and freeze. The night before you want to serve them, place them in the fridge to thaw. (Or you can pull them out of the freezer a couple hours before baking and just set them on the counter to thaw.) Bake for 18-20 minutes (it seems like they should only take half as long since they were already partly baked, but they need almost as long as the original time).
These are delicious! And so tiny, they disappear lickity-split! Just don’t be afraid of undercooking them. Because they’re so small and they have so much gooeyness, you don’t notice if they are a tiny bit underbaked. However, if you overbake them even just a little, they dry out.
I reheated these for a few seconds in the microwave the day after I’d baked them, and they were almost just as tender and soft as right out of the oven.
One note about the caramel sauce – I was making small batches in little crocks, so my ratio may have been off, but I think you want to cut back on the sauce a little bit. Since these are so tiny, the sauce bubbles up to the tops of them and completely soaks them in sauce (it’s actually delicious, but it does make it like having a little roll with your sauce 🙂).