Soft and fluffy cake swirled with brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon, topped with rich cream cheese icing! This cake has everything you love about the classic cinnamon roll, and it’s ten times easier to make!
I don’t think I know anyone who’s not at least a little obsessed with cinnamon rolls. Nor do I want to…
No doubt your nose has been bombarded with their intoxicatingly delicious brown sugary-cinnamon aroma that can fill the entire house. Or in most cases, shopping malls and airports. Along with other sweet breakfast foods like pancakes and waffles, what I love about cinnamon rolls is that they give you an excuse to consume mountains of butter, sugar, and frosting in the morning. Sorry, but I’ll pass on your bacon and eggs. I’d rather have me some butter-laden swirls of dough drenched in a pool of icing, thankyouverymuch. If I could come up with the best reason NOT to skip breakfast in the morning, it would have to be cinnamon rolls.
However, the ONLY drawback to cinnamon rolls is that they’re not the easiest suckers to make. In fact, my most preferred method of making cinnamon rolls is to drive to the nearest Cinnabon. There’s so much dough-rolling and dough-rising involved that it can become a major headache. Especially if they don’t turn out so great in the end. Luckily though, there’s an alternative to the back-breaking endeavor of making cinnamon rolls that’s ten times easier and quicker! It’s called the Cinnamon Roll Cake…
So I know it’s not quite the same as your traditional cinnamon roll. It does, however, have several of the qualities that make cinnamon rolls the delicious beast that they are. First off, this cake is super fluffy. I say fluffy instead of moist because I know how offended people get by that word. MOIST.
This cake is has the perfect fluff factor and is not the least bit dry, thanks to a hefty dose of sour cream. It’s one of my go-to ingredients to assure that my cakes or quick breads bake up soft and moist (sorry!).
Secondly, we have that oh-so-important brown sugar-cinnamon swirl laced throughout the cake. It’s a simple mixture of brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon which is exactly what you find in that iconically hypnotic cinnamon roll spiral. Seriously, I cannot think of a better smell than butter combined with brown sugar and cinnamon. And I’ve smelled a lot of smells, people!
Unlike traditional cinnamon rolls which involve several painstaking tasks–rolling out the dough, spreading the brown sugar-butter mixture on top, rolling it into a deformed log, slicing it into rolls, and fitting those rolls into a pan–this cake is made in much, much, MUCH fewer steps. All you have to do is pour the cake batter into a pan, drop spoonfuls of the brown sugar mixture over the top, swirl it a few times with a knife, then pop it in the oven to bake.
Really, could it get any easier??
Last, but never least, a cinnamon roll is not a true cinnamon roll without its heavenly wedding gown of frosting/icing. As a matter of fact, the frosting really is the reason why cinnamon rolls are so mouthwatering. Think about it. If there was no frosting, cinnamon rolls would just be dry spirals of bread. Ain’t nothin’ exciting, nor delicious about that! Case in point, cinnamon rolls NEED to be enrobed in frosting.
And this cake does NOT fall short in the frosting department, I can guarantee you that. Depending on how drenched you like your cinnamon rolls, you might end up with some leftover frosting. I tend to prefer a thick (and I mean THICK) layer of frosting on my cinnamon rolls, but since I was sharing this with others, I didn’t get too carried away with the frosting. Thanks to the fact that this is a cream cheese frosting, it’s not overly sweet. When given the choice between cream cheese frosting and regular frosting, I almost always go with cream cheese. I love the tang it adds to sweet treats, especially cinnamon rolls.
And if you’re still craving the real thing, check out my recipe for what I believe are The World’s Best Cinnamon Rolls.
And if you needed another reason to make this cake, just think of how delicious your house is going to smell…
Mmmmmmmm…..
Cinnamon Roll Cake
Ingredients
Brown Sugar Swirl:
- 6 Tablespoons salted butter softened
- ½ cup packed brown sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoon cinnamon
Cake:
- 1 ⅔ cup all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ½ cup sour cream
- ¼ cup milk
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3 Tablespoons unsalted butter melted
Cream Cheese Icing:*
- 3 ounces cream cheese
- 4 Tablespoons salted butter softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ½ teaspoon lemon juice
- 1 cup powdered sugar
Instructions
Make the Brown Sugar Swirl:
- In a medium bowl combine the butter, brown sugar and cinnamon until smooth; set aside.
Make the Cake:
- Preheat oven to 350ºF, and line an 8-inch square baking dish with parchment paper. Spray with nonstick cooking spray.
- In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar together until combined. Add the sour cream, milk, eggs, and vanilla, mixing until batter is almost combined. Pour in the melted butter and continue mixing until smooth.
- Pour 3/4 of the batter into the prepared pan. Drop spoonfuls of about half of the swirl mixture over the batter. Add remaining batter on top, followed by spoonfuls of remaining swirl mixture. Using a skewer or knife, swirl the mixture into the batter.
- Bake in the oven for 25-27 minutes, or until the top is set and center of the cake jiggles slightly. Allow to cool slightly while you make the icing.
Make the Cream Cheese Icing:
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese, butter, vanilla, and lemon juice together until combined. Add the powdered sugar and continue mixing until smooth.
- Spread icing on top of cake. Cut into squares and serve!