Cheater Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Glaze

Um…what happened. I know I have said this before…but I mean it every time…and I’m saying it again…these are probably the best things I have ever made! I need to never buy any of these ingredients again, because the cinnamon rolls are so delicious that they are 100% wiped out within two days ?. For the sake of my pants still fitting, these tasty treats will only be allowed in my house on special occasions!

Maybe I’ll start counting Fridays as special occasions.

And Mondays? A celebration of getting through the first full day of the week?

Maybe Wednesdays, too. Whatup Hump Day – let’s welcome you with some buttery, cinnamon-y, pumkin-y, maple-y awesomeness.

Can I just tell you what happened when I took my first bite of one of these cinnamon rolls? It may help explain how good they are…so good that I am basically getting emotional while telling you about them. First of all, I must say that I was very skeptical of this recipe. I used a special ingredient in place of scratch made dough (which I was very unsure about), I added pumpkin (which I was also very unsure about), and I created a maple glaze – I’m not a baker, so my glaze-making confidence was not high.

So – my first bite. I pulled one out, ate it, and then yelled Seth’s name (he was in another part of the house). Since he wasn’t sprinting towards me with the necessary speed that I needed so he could shove a cinnamon roll into his mouth PRONTO, I yelled, “It’s an emergency!!!!!” to which he came quite promptly. Go ahead, judge me for probably scaring the life out of my husband (momentarily). You’ll understand when you try them!

I’m sure you are wondering what my super sneaky substitution is for homemade dough. Or maybe you’re more normal and don’t get as obsessively invested in food as I do. My obsession is slightly abnormal, but I’m rollin’ with it – leaning into the curve, you could say ?.

The secret ingredient: crescent roll seamless dough sheet.

If you’ve never heard of that before, it’s okay – I hadn’t either. In fact, I was surprised my grocery store even had it because I had never seen it before. But you HAVE heard of crescent rolls before, I’m sure. If you haven’t, you gotta jump on that bandwagon of buttery, flaky, melt-in-your-mouth pastries that essentially come out of a can…say whaaaaat? Who knows why they’re so good…I sure don’t. The only difference between the regular crescent rolls and this seamless dough sheet is that the dough sheet doesn’t have the little perforated triangles that you pull apart to make your crescent rolls. It’s just one big sheet! (If that doesn’t make sense, here’s a link to one.) Which is perfect for…? Cinnamon rolls! If your grocery store doesn’t carry the seamless dough sheet, that is totally fine. Just buy the regular crescent rolls and push the seams together with your fingers before adding the other goodies.

You guys…while making these, I was thinking that there is NO way they will turn out as good as scratch-made cinnamon rolls. No way. They will hopefully be good, but nothing comes up to scratch with homemade cinnamon rolls. BUUUUT WAIT, they are just as good if not better. I’m not lying…and I am a big fan of homemade cinnamon rolls. I have had them on many occasions. And I’m telling you guys…these are just as good!

And guess how much time they take to make? 30 minutes. Yes. 30 minutes. My world has just changed forevaaaa.

Let’s break these down and talk about each fantastic element:

The dough. Forget about spending hours and hours in your kitchen making dough, waiting for it to rise, rolling it out, forming the cinnamon rolls, waiting for it to rise again, blah blah blah. Just pop open your can of crescent roll dough and get movin’!
The butter: brushed all over the crescent dough before anything else touches its surface, and then brushed over the rolls before they go into the oven (❤️).
The Pumpkin: spread over the butter layer, giving these rolls a subtle pumpkin flavor – we gotta throw some fall in there, man…gotta do it.
The cinnamon and sugar – becauusseee…cinnamon rolls!
THE MAPLE GLAZE – you guys…this glaze is one of my proudest moments. It is seriously so good that I want to just hoard the whole bowl and eat it with a spoon. It only contains three ingredients – butter, maple syrup, and powdered sugar – but it is seriously one of the most delicious things I’ve ever eaten. Needless to say, my cinnamon rolls got DOUSED in this magical sauce.

30 minutes – top to bottom. Like…it’s not possible, but it is possible, and it’s amazing, and made my whole weekend glorious.

There is something I should point out about these rolls so that you aren’t surprised while making them. They are much smaller than regular cinnamon rolls. You can see their size in relation to a fork in the picture below (and the first picture). I personally see this as a positive. They are more manageable to eat than the MASSIVE cinnamon rolls you usually see, and since they are smaller, you can have more ?. Rather than one big one once a day, you can have three little ones throughout the day. They are less than 150 calories per little roll, so…basically it’s kale.

There is one huge negative to this whole process, though, and that is OPENING THE CAN OF CRESCENT ROLLS. Literally my biggest fear. I can’t do it. I CAN’T. It’s the kind where you have to press the spoon against the seam, wait in agony for it to open, and then POP!, five years are taken off your life.

I made Seth do it while I went to the corner of the kitchen, closed my eyes, and covered my ears. Would you like to hear my nightmare? I am standing in a room with spiders, and the only way to kill the spiders is to pop a bunch of crescent roll cans…GAHHHHH.

BUT – these little dudes are soooooooo worth the awful can-popping process…yum!

Cheater Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Glaze

Prep time

10 mins

Cook time

20 mins

Total time

30 mins

Author: Annie Chesson

Serves: 12 small cinnamon rolls

Ingredients

1 crescent roll seamless dough sheet
3 tablespoons butter, melted
¼ cup canned pumpkin
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon white granulated sugar
For the glaze:
¼ cup butter
¼ cup maple syrup
¼ cup powdered sugar

Instructions

Heat the oven to 375 degrees
Lightly flour a surface of your counter and lay your crescent roll sheet out
Using a pastry brush, brush enough butter across the top of the dough sheet to liberally coat it - about 2 tablespoons or so (you will use the rest later)
On top of the butter, spread your pumpkin across in an even layer
On top of that, evenly sprinkle across your cinnamon and your sugar
Roll it up (longways, not short ways, so that it's one long "tube" rather than a fat, short one)
Slice off the ends to make it neat and clean, and slice into cinnamon rolls (about 1 inch - maybe a little more. It will make about 12 rolls, give or take a few)
Butter an 11x7 inch baking dish, and add the cinnamon rolls to it
Brush the remaining butter over top of each roll and bake for about 20 minutes (maybe a little less, maybe a little more) - until the tops of the cinnamon rolls are golden brown
Meanwhile, make your glaze
Melt your butter in a microwave safe bowl
To the melted butter, whisk in your maple syrup and your powdered sugar
When the cinnamon rolls come out of the oven, coat with the glaze, and you're ready to serve! These are by FAR best served warm, so I would recommend either eating them fresh, or popping them in the microwave before serving
*Notes: these are small cinnamon rolls since you aren't working with as much dough, so don't let that surprise you! You don't need to use an 11x7 baking dish - you can really use anything. They fit nicely in an 11x7, but if you don't have it - no biggie. If you can't find the seamless sheet of dough, you can use regular crescent roll dough and just pinch together the perforated triangles so there are no seams.