Do you ever get tired of making the same thing over and over again? That’s how these cinnamon twist knots came into existence. I wanted cinnamon rolls, but I didn’t feel like making regular cinnamon rolls.
I wanted to try something different. These cinnamon knot twists are tender, flaky pastries that are a fun version of a classic cinnamon roll.
While they take a little longer to shape than regular cinnamon rolls, these knots take less time to rise and only about 10 minutes to bake!
A clear glaze is brushed over the knots as soon as they are removed from the oven. This locks in moisture keeping these pastries fresh for a few days after making.
This is great for me and my husband since we aren’t able to eat many cinnamon rolls before they get dry. Though I love these warm straight from the oven, they still taste delicious at room temperature.
The glaze hardens just enough to make them easy to transport without becoming too hard that it feels like you’re eating hard chunks of sugar!
We’re leaving this evening for a long road trip, and you can bet that the leftovers of these will be going with us!
Even though I’ll be gone the next few days, be sure to keep checking back because I have some great bloggers lined up to fill in for me. You may, in fact, find them way more entertaining than me! 🙂
- 6 C bread flour
- ⅓ C sugar
- 1½ tsp salt
- 1½ tbsp active dry yeast (I used Red Star Yeast)
- 2 eggs, room temperature
- ⅓ C butter, melted and cooled
- 2 C non-fat milk, at 120 degrees F
- ¼ C butter, softened
- 1½ tbsp cinnamon
- 3 tbsp sugar
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- ¼ C sugar
- 2 tbsp water
- ½ tbsp honey
- 1½ C confectioner's sugar
- 1 tbsp + 1 tsp milk
- In a bowl of a stand mixer, stir together 4 C bread flour, sugar, salt, and yeast. Add in eggs, butter, and milk. Stir until just starting to combine. With mixer on low, slowly add remaining 2 cups of bread flour.
- Replace paddle with a dough hook and beat for 5-8 minutes or until dough is smooth and starts to pull away from the edge of the bowl when mixing. Dough will be sticky.
- Transfer dough to a large bowl that has been sprayed with non-stick cooking spray. Cover with a clean towel and allow to rise until doubled in size, about 45-60 minutes.
- Turn dough out onto a well-floured surface and punch down. Roll out to a 24 x 12 inch rectangle. Spread dough with softened butter. Sprinkle cinnamon and sugars over the top. Gently fold dough in half width wise.
- Cut dough into 1-inch strips along the length side. Twist each strip and tie in a knot.
- Place knots onto a parchment paper lined or non-stick cooking spray coated baking sheet. Cover with clean cloth and allow to rise for another 20-30 minutes or until knots puff and dough is super soft to the touch. (At this point you can cover and put in the refrigerator overnight to bake in the morning)
- Preheat oven to 375.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes or until knots just start to turn golden brown.
- While knots are baking, begin preparing clear glaze. Stir together sugar, water, and honey in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Reduce heat to medium-low and allow to simmer for 5 minutes, stirring constantly to prevent scorching. Remove from heat and cool.
- Brush glaze over the tops of warm knots.
- Prepare the drizzle by stirring together confectioner's sugar and milk until smooth. Drizzle over the tops of slightly cooled knots.
- Serve warm.
This recipe is adapted from Simply So Good.
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Wow, I think I could eat one of these everyday! So pretty! Your photos are making me drool!
I love the “twist” on the cinnamon scroll. I must try!
Oh I love cinnamon! These look incredible and so pretty. you did on amazing job. I could never twist them like that!
I want to eat these knots all day long!
These look like a happy accident! I’m a big fan of traditional cinnamon rolls, but these look like a lot of fun to eat, and equally delicious!
Yum! Can I please have one right now with my latte?? This look so delicious and relatively easy to make so I will be trying them soon!
These knots are beautiful! I adore cinnamon buns and this “twist” 😉 on the classic looks absolutely divine.
Oh my gosh!! These look INCREDIBLE!
I love everything about these knot rolls – gorgeous cinnamony goodness, beautiful photography, great instructions! Thanks so much. Can’t wait to try these! x
Mouth is watering … I am such a sucker for anything cinnamon. Have a good trip!
xo Jackie
I’m drooling…I’m a sucker for anything cinnamon roll like in any shape or form. These look SO GOOD!
I love the added twist to these! Have a great road trip and I hope the weather is amazing! 🙂
Oh Jessica these cinnamon twist knots look so good, I could eat the whole pan!
What a beautiful pastry you’ve made, these look incredible! Have fun on your trip!
I am in serious love!! These sound amazing!
These are so fun. You know how I feel about cinnamon/sugar!
These literally could not look better to me! Yum!
Want. Now. (haha!) seriously though, looks incredible!
These look so sweet and flaky and full of cinnamon-y gooooodnesssss
The look so much more fancy than a cinnamon roll. Lovely!
These are gorgeous! What a fun twist (no pun intended…ha!) on cinnamon rolls!
Have a great trip, I would love these cinnamon twists for a road trip!! YUM
These are gorgeous! Cinnamon buns are my weakness – these would disappear in no time at my house!
These twists are so beautiful!!
These are absolutely beautiful!
Oh golly do I love any baked good with a cinnamon roll type yummyness to it! FAbulous!
These are just superb Jessica! I love that filling and the homemade dough! Perfect individual breakfast treats!
These made my mouth water. And I’m stuck at work too! Evil 😛 You’re so good at twisting your knots! Whenever I do dough twists it ends up looking rude.
These are so amazing! I love cinnamon, so very tasty!
Beautiful pictures! Way to change up a cinnamon roll. You hit this one out of the park again!
What a fabulous recipe, the photos are beautiful too! Pinning 🙂
Wow! I love different takes on breakfast items – unfortunately I’d probably eat ALL of these in one sitting. I have no control with cinnamon rolls:)
PS – sent you an email!
these look great! i can’t wait to try ’em 🙂
Oh my goodness these look soooo good! I don’t think there would be any leftovers in our house!
I would love to make these but I don’t have a stand
Mixer, do you think that if I mixed this by hand it would still work?
Sorry for the delayed response! We’ve been traveling. I haven’t yet tried this recipe without a stand mixer, but I think you could get by without it for this recipe. The dough is pretty soft. I would probably start with 3 cups of flour instead of 4 like the directions say and then add in the remainder, just to make sure that it gets well blended. If you have a hand mixer, you may want to use that for the first mixing and then stir in the rest of the flour with a wooden spoon or something like that. Hope that helps!
Ok I’m late to comment, but these caught my eye yesterday and I seriously haven’t been able to stop thinking about them since! So gorgeous! I’m going to have to satisfy the craving very, very soon 🙂
these look absolutely divine! I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off. Nice spin on a normal cinnamon roll, for sure.
I’m pretty sure I shall never tire of anything involving cinnamon-sugar…but these twists are such a fun new adaptation of the classic cinnamon roll!
I wouldn’t even try to say no to these!! Perfect for breakfast!!
They DO look like a fun version of a cinnamon roll! Great idea
ummm these are pretty damn amazing. I really wish i lived close to you right now because I’m drooling staring at the screen!
I made these last night and they turned out wonderful. I love the light texture and sweetness. I’ve made cinnamon rolls and bread for years but these are now my new favorite go-to recipe. Thanks!
Oh, I’m so glad to hear it! Enjoy! 🙂
These sound amazing Jessica!! I could eat these over and over again. For sure!
Made them today and turned out great . They were delicious. ♥.♥
According to my family ,they thought they could use a bit more filling .
Anyway thank you for this awesome recipe =)
These look awesome! I love traditional cinnamon rolls, so I’m sure I’d love these as well. Yum!
Jessica – these are gorgeous to look at and I’m sure even better to eat! Pinned!
These seriously look amazing! I don’t know how you managed to have leftovers for your trip. 😉
Safe travels.
These are lovely.My mother made something much like these and she added ground walnuts. Yours are quite beautiful, too!
These twists look fabulous, I love cinnamon bread!
What an awesome twist (pun intended!) on traditional cinnamon rolls. They look and sound SO amazing!
this is my idea of the perfect breakfast treat! gorgeous
These twists are stunning! Seriously wishing I had one with my coffee riight now!
Wow…those are gorgeous! I think we could probably eat all of them before they had a chance to get stale, they look delicious 🙂
These look amazing! i love the idea of a different type of cinnamon roll. thanks for sharing!
Your cinnamon knots look wonderful! What a great change! Have a great vacation!
These look wonderful! They sound like they would be perfect for breakfast with a big cup of tea!
I love this recipe! I make them up to the last rise the night before and refrigerate overnight. In the morning I let them rise until puffy about an hour and bake. Yum these are really delish, everyone loves them. Leftovers can be wrapped in foil and reheated with great results.
Those are beautiful. They look very elegant. And delicious.
I love these Jessica! I am sure that they are absolutely worth the extra effort!! Have fun on your trip!
Beautiful!!
These look wonderful! I bet the knots are extra great at trapping all the gooey cinnamon glaze goodness too!
I will be making this on the weekend and wanted to know can you use regular flour? Please inform
Yes, you can use all-purpose flour instead of bread flour. The texture will be slightly different but they should still taste great! 🙂
I made these last night. I may have misread the directions, but after they rose, I put them in the frige to bake this morning. They lost their puffiness. They took much longer to bake because they were cold and they didn’t rise again. In spite of this, they are very good.
I have never been great art making anything that requires yeast and rising, but these wet easy to make and turned out amazing!!!!
I’m so glad you liked them! Thanks!
I’m having overnight guests and making these again right now for breakfast tomorrow!
I wish I was having breakfast at your house tomorrow! 🙂
Next week I will be making them and adding chopped pecans. They are really easy to make.
Love the idea of adding chopped pecans!
Do you think these can be made ahead and then frozen?
I have not personally frozen them, but I have had readers tell me that they have frozen them after making them. Just make sure to put wax paper or parchment paper between them because the glaze tends to stick the knots together when they thaw. Hope that helps!
These are so good and by far the easiest yeast roll recipe I have ever made. I skipped the refrigerator step. After forming the knots, I let them raise and baked right away. Also did not use the glaze, brushed them with butter right after taking them out of the oven and then frosted after cooling. They freeze very well, wrapped individually and placed in freezer bag, then could take out however many we wanted at a time. I will be making these very often – excellent recipe!
Thanks Beth! I’m so glad you like them! Great idea to freeze them and just take out what you need at a time!
Just made these for a football party. I halved the dough and used one half for cinnamon rolls and the other half for savory rolls where I used butter, garlic powder, parsley, dried oregano and freshly grated parmesan. Huge hit!
Love the sound of those savory rolls! I need to try that!