Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
It’s officially fall, and these gooey pumpkin spice cinnamon rolls with maple cream cheese frosting are the perfect treat to kick off the season! Loaded with real pumpkin and pumpkin spice, this breakfast treat is sure to be a hit for your entire family!
I’m such a fall person. It’s always been my favorite season. There’s something about fall that just screams cozy, and that’s 100% my jam. I love to wrap up in a blanket with a cup of tea and yummy baked goods. You just can’t do that in the summer. Don’t get me wrong, summer has its own beauty, but I’m a fall girl through and through.
Now that it’s cooled down a bit outside, my oven pretty much doesn’t turn off. In my opinion, baking is the perfect way to cozy up a house. It creates warmth and produces the yummiest smells! These pumpkin spice cinnamon rolls with maple cream cheese frosting will certainly cozy up your space! They smell so yummy with the pumpkin spices and are perfect to enjoy with a warm cup of tea or coffee. So let’s get started making them so you can cozy up an enjoy!
What You’ll Need:
- Small pot for warming your milk.
- Water proof thermometer for testing the temperature of your milk. I just use my cheesemaking thermometer, but even a clean meat thermometer would work just fine. You don’t want to get it too warm because you’ll run the risk of scalding it or making it too hot for the yeast to thrive.
- Stand Mixer with whisk and dough hook attachments. I LOVE my Kitchenaid. Like seriously love it. I use it pretty much every day. At this point, I don’t even take it off my kitchen counter. It just lives there lol.
- Plastic wrap, tea towel, or beeswax wraps – this is for covering the dough when it rises. Personally I like the plastic or beeswax wrap because they get a better seal on the bowl. This tends to hold in more heat and keep moisture out which allows for a better rise on my dough.
- Rolling Pin
- Rubber Spatula
- Dental Floss – this is for cutting the rolls. You can use a knife or a pastry cutter, but dental floss works best for a clean cut.
- 12 inch cast iron skillet
Ingredients:
Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Roll:
- Milk
- Yeast
- Sugar
- Pumpkin Puree – be sure to use pumpkin puree and not pumpkin pie filling* You can check out my recipe here for making your own pumpkin puree at home!
- Salt
- All purpose flour
- Pumpkin Pie Spice – if you don’t have any pumpkin pie spice on hand, you can make your own by following my recipe here! You can also add cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and nutmeg to your dough instead.
Pumpkin Spice Roll Filling:
- Salted butter
- Brown sugar
- Pumpkin Pie Spice
- Heavy cream
Maple Cream Cheese Frosting:
- Cream cheese
- Maple syrup
- Vanilla extract
How to Make Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Roll Dough:
- Warm milk in pan over medium heat to 115 F
- Transfer warm milk to stand mixer bowl and add yeast, sugar, and pumpkin.
- Mix well, then let sit for 5 minutes to allow the yeast to activate.
- Add dry ingredients and mix until completely combined.
- Switch out whisk attachment for dough hook and knead on medium speed for 5 minutes until a nice dough forms. If kneading by hand, you will need to knead for about 15 minutes.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, tea towel, or beeswax wrap and set in a warm place to rise for 30 minutes or until doubled in size.
- While the dough rises, make pumpkin spice filling.
How to Make Pumpkin Spice Filling:
- Add salted butter, brown sugar, and pumpkin spices to a bowl.
- Mix until completely incorporated.
How to Assemble Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Rolls:
- After your dough has risen, place it onto a well floured surface.
- Add more flour to the top of your dough, and roll out into approximately 15×24 inch rectangle. This will take a few minutes because the dough will want to spring back a little. Keep at it for about 5 minutes or so, it will relax and you can get it rolled out nicely.
- Once the dough is rolled out, spread your Pumpkin Spice filling across the entire sheet of dough using a rubber spatula. It wants to glob up a little, but I’ve found that small strokes with the spatula works the best.
- Roll the dough on the long side into a tight spiral.
- Slice dough into 12 equal pieces using dental floss (see note below in tips and tricks) Each slice should be about 1 ½ inches thick. I sliced my dough in the middle, then made cuts for 3 equal sized rolls and cut off the ends that weren’t perfectly even. I did end up just putting those end bits into my pan to make 2 mini pumpkin spice cinnamon rolls in addition to the 12 regular sized rolls.
- Place pumpkin spice cinnamon rolls into your cast iron pan, cover with a tea towel, and let rise for 30 minutes.
- When your rolls have risen, drizzle with heavy cream. Be sure to drizzle around the center of each roll to prevent the centers from popping out during baking.
How to Make Maple Cream Cheese Frosting:
- Place an 8oz block of cream cheese and 3 Tablespoons of salted butter into the bowl of your stand mixer. Allow to sit at room temperature until softened.
- Add 4 Tablespoons of maple syrup, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.
- Mix on medium speed with an electric or stand mixer for about 2 minutes, or until fully incorporated.
Tips and Tricks
- The dental floss trick is probably my favorite for getting a clean cut in my dough.
- You’ll cut off a piece of floss about 18 inches long.
- Then, place dental floss under the dough where you want to make your cut.
- Pull the ends of the floss up, and cross over each other at the top of your dough.
- Pull the ends in opposite directions to cut off a perfect slice of dough.
- Sometimes when baking, the centers of your cinnamon rolls will pop out like little towers. If this happens, don’t worry! While the rolls are still warm, and before frosting, simply take the bottom side of a spoon and gently push the centers back into place. You’ll have perfectly shaped rolls, and no one will be the wiser!
How to Substitute Pumpkin in Your Favorite Recipes?
Are you interested in turning some of your other favorite recipes into pumpkin versions of themselves? It’s actually super simple! To substitute pumpkin into any recipe, you can replace 1 egg with ¼ cup of pumpkin puree or 1 cup of butter or oil with ¾ cup of pumpkin puree.
Other Recipes Mentioned in this Post:
- How to make homemade pumpkin puree
- Homemade pumpkin pie spice
Items I Used in This Post:
- Kitchenaid mixer
- Rolling pin
- Cast iron skillet
Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
These pumpkin spice cinnamon rolls with maple cream cheese frosting are an explosion of all things fall! The dough has real pumpkin and loads of pumpkin spice, as does the filling. Top it off with a delicious maple cream cheese frosting!
Equipment
- Small pot for warming your milk.
- Water proof thermometer for testing the temperature of your milk.
- Stand Mixer with whisk and dough hook attachments.
- Plastic wrap you can also use a tea towel, or beeswax wraps
- Rolling Pin
- Rubber Spatula
- Dental Floss –this is for cutting the rolls. You can use a knife or a pastry cutter, but dental floss works best for a clean cut.
- 12 inch cast iron skillet
Ingredients
Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Dough
- 1 cup milk
- 2 ½ tsp yeast
- ½ cup sugar
- ¾ cup pumpkin
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp allspice
- ¼ tsp ginger
- ¼ tsp nutmeg
- ¼ tsp cloves
- 1 tsp salt
- 4 ½ cups flour
Pumpkin Spice Filling
- ½ cup butter
- 1 cup brown sugar
- 1 ½ Tbsp cinnamon
- ½ Tbsp allspice
- 1 tsp nutmeg
- ⅓ cup heavy cream
Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
- 8 oz cream cheese
- 4 Tbsp maple syrup
- 3 Tbsp salted butter
- 1 tsp vanilla
Instructions
Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Dough
- Warm milk in pan over medium heat to 115 F
- Transfer warm milk to stand mixer bowl and add yeast, sugar, and pumpkin.
- Mix well, then let sit for 5 minutes to allow the yeast to activate.
- Add dry ingredients and mix until completely combined.
- Switch out whisk attachment for dough hook and knead on medium speed for 5 minutes until a nice dough forms. If kneading by hand, you will need to knead for about 15 minutes.
- Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, tea towel, or beeswax wrap and set in a warm place to rise for 30 minutes or until doubled in size.
- While the dough rises, make pumpkin spice filling.
Pumpkin Spice Filling
- Add salted butter, brown sugar, and spices to a bowl.
- Mix until completely incorporated.
Assembling the Cinnamon Rolls
- After your dough has risen, place it onto a well floured surface.
- Add more flour to the top of your dough, and roll out into approximately 15×24 inch rectangle. This will take a few minutes because the dough will want to spring back a little. Keep at it for about 5 minutes or so, it will relax and you can get it rolled out nicely.
- Once the dough is rolled out, spread your Pumpkin Spice filling across the entire sheet of dough using a rubber spatula. It wants to glob up a little, but I’ve found that small strokes with the spatula works the best.
- Roll the dough on the long side into a tight spiral.
- Slice dough into 12 equal pieces using dental floss (see note below in tips and tricks) Each slice should be about 1 ½ inches thick. I sliced my dough in the middle, then made cuts for 3 equal sized rolls and cut off the ends that weren’t perfectly even. I did end up just putting those end bits into my pan to make 2 mini pumpkin spice cinnamon rolls in addition to the 12 regular sized rolls.
- Place pumpkin spice cinnamon rolls into your cast iron pan, cover with a tea towel, and let rise for 30 minutes.
- When your rolls have risen, drizzle with heavy cream. Be sure to drizzle around the center of each roll to prevent the centers from popping out during baking.
Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
- Place an 8oz block of cream cheese and 3 Tablespoons of salted butter into the bowl of your stand mixer. Allow to sit at room temperature until softened.
- Add 4 Tablespoons of maple syrup, and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.
- Mix on medium speed with an electric or stand mixer for about 2 minutes, or until fully incorporated.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
