Don’t need an entire pan of cinnamon rolls for breakfast? Why not just bake one or two Giant Walnut Sticky Bun Cinnamon Rolls. They’re delicious and go in the oven in just a couple of minutes. The key is to take advantage of a shortcut ready for you in your grocer's refrigerator section.
I love to make cinnamon rolls from scratch but I’m definitely not as good at it as my Mother was. It seemed that she could whip them up in no time and have them on the breakfast table in a matter of minutes. We would wake up to the wonderful aroma of cinnamon and sweet bread baking. What a deliciously cozy wake up feeling!
Visit your favorite grocery store and pick up a package of giant-sized refrigerator cinnamon rolls. They usually have five in the cylindrical package. You don’t need to make them all at once. I have made one or two and refrigerated the rest for later in the week. I’ve never found store bought cinnamon rolls to be very tasty baked made according to the instructions on the package. However, through my experiments over the years, I’ve come up with a giant sticky bun recipe that is delicious on these easy to make cinnamon rolls! There’s no mixing messy flour, rolling and waiting for the dough to rise. You can easily tweak this recipe regarding flavor and trimmings according to the season if you like.
Pop open the cinnamon roll package and pull out the number you want to make. I’ve even made one at a time. Save the rest in the refrigerator for a few days, sealed in an airtight container. Then have more fresh baked!
Stir together up some brown sugar, soft butter, maple syrup and vanilla extract. Pour it into the bottom of the lavishly buttered baking dish
Plop the cinnamon roll(s) on top and bake. It takes just a couple minutes to prep the rolls and within 25 minutes you have ooey gooey sticky baked buns overloaded with walnuts (or pecans) to enjoy with a cold glass of milk or a hot cup of your favorite coffee. These rolls are that good!
Of course you can make your own cinnamon rolls from scratch. Be sure to roll them larger for this recipe.
Preheat your oven to the temperature recommended on the cinnamon roll package.
Prep your baking dish(es):
For 2 Giant Walnut Sticky Bun Cinnamon Rolls, lavishly brush with butter a baking dish just about 1-2 inches larger in diameter than the cinnamon rolls. The baking dish should be 3-4” high. I use two extra large flat bottomed ceramic soup bowls to make one roll in each bowl.
Gather up the Ingredients:
2 Cinnamon rolls, store bought, refrigerated
2 T Butter
1/3 C Brown sugar
1/2 t Vanilla extract
2 T Maple Syrup (real, not artificial)
½ - ¾ C Walnuts, rough chopped
Mix, assemble and bake:
-To make the sticky sauce for the bottom of the baking pan stir and melt together the butter, maple syrup, vanilla extract and walnuts. I do it right in the baking dish. Melt them together over low to medium heat on the stove or in the microwave. Do not boil, just heat up and stir together so everything is melted together.
-Add the rough chopped walnuts and stir so all the walnuts are coated with the syrupy sauce.
With the walnut sticky sauce in the bottom of your buttered baking dish, lay one premade cinnamon roll on top of the walnut covered sticky sauce.
-Bake for 23-27 minutes. I check it at the 20-minute mark and rotate my baking dishes since my oven bakes a little unevenly. Return them to the oven for the rest of the baking time. They should come out tall and a nice golden brown.
-When the rolls are done, place a serving plate upside down over the pan of rolls right away. Using two protective hot pads and holding the two dishes tight together, flip them over so the bottom of the baking pan faces up. Gently lift the baking dish off and everything should slip out nicely. If a few of the walnuts remain in the pan, use a silicone spatula to scoop everything out onto the rolls. Pile those walnuts right on top of the roll.
NOTE: The roll will slide out of the baking pan easier as soon as they are done baking. If they cool in the baking dish, they could be tough to get out of the pan. Since the pan will be very hot, so be sure to use protective hot pads.
Ice cream makes it a special celebration!
On the farm, when Gramps ate his homemade cinnamon roll, I remember he would ladle fresh thick heavy cream off the top of the glass milk jug and cover the sticky bun. Then Gram would place a dollop of fresh whipped cream on top. It was a favorite treat of his! Nowadays, I’m sure some would scoop ice cream on top of that warm bundle of sweetness for a modern day celebration.
Storage:
-These Giant Walnut Stick Bun Cinnamon Rolls store nicely under a cake dome on the counter for a day or two. Or sometimes I just turn a big plastic bowl over the plate of rolls on the counter. If the walnut sticky sauce turns a little hard, just stick it in them microwave for 5 seconds or so.
-Or, you can store them covered in the refrigerator for up to 5 days. But they never last that long in my house, so I don’t worry about how to store them in the frig. Heat them up in the microwave just for a few seconds to soften the sticky sauce.
-When I split the 5 rolls out of the store bought package, to bake them on two different days, 2 for the first day and 3 for later, I store them in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to 5 days, then bake them fresh.
-I have never frozen them after baking since they disappear sooner than freezing is needed.
These Giant Walnut Sticky Bun Cinnamon Rolls are so good! They are delicious for any family breakfast or even split up and baked on different days for extended treat dates. However you enjoy them, “Bake your own Memories!”
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