This Cinnamon Roll Cake is a game-changer: no yeast, no rising, no hassle! It comes together fast and bakes quicker than traditional cinnamon rolls. Top with quick cream cheese frosting and get ready to fall in love!
The Best Cinnamon Roll Cake Recipe
Cinnamon rolls are an iconic dessert, but they can be time-consuming. Waiting for the dough to rise twice, plus making the dough, filling, and glaze—it’s a lot.
While I spent months perfecting my Easy Cinnamon Roll Recipe (with no kneading, no mixer, and the quickest dough prep possible), it still takes a fair amount of time to get from start to cinnamon rolls on the table.
That’s why this Cinnamon Roll Cake recipe is the best:
- All the flavors you love from cinnamon rolls.
- No kneading, no rising, no mixer needed. We don’t even make the dough, thanks to a shortcut ingredient!
- This cake can be on the table in about 30 minutes. Seriously! The prep and bake time are both quick.
- It’s fun! This cake is a blast to assemble and even more fun to eat (obviously!).
The “Short-Cut”
So how do we finish this cake so quickly? We use refrigerated buttermilk biscuits!
The biscuits are the perfect substitute for cinnamon roll dough, and no one will know you used a store-bought shortcut because this cake is just that good!
I like to grab a 4-pack of buttermilk biscuits to make either one large cinnamon roll cake or a couple of smaller ones. If there are leftovers, we use them for a breakfast favorite—Biscuits and Gravy!
How To Make A Cinnamon Roll Cake
The full recipe is on the recipe card, but here’s a quick overview:
- Flatten each biscuit as thin as possible using a rolling pin or your hands.
- Dip the biscuit in melted butter, then in cinnamon-sugar.
- Roll the coated biscuit tightly into a cylinder and place it on the outer edge of the skillet or pie pan.
- Continue placing the biscuits in a spiral, seam side down, until they reach the center.
- While the Cinnamon Roll Cake bakes (and fills your house with an amazing aroma), whip up the frosting to spread over the warm cake—swoon!
What Pan To Use
This recipe is very forgiving—as long as you have plenty of butter, sugar, cinnamon, and biscuits, you can make the cake as big or small as you like.
We often make this cake in a small 6 to 8-inch cast iron skillet, but if we’re feeding others or feeling extra hungry, we use a 9-inch pie pan.
The bigger the pan, the longer the preparation takes, but you’ll be impressed by how quickly it comes together once the assembly line is set up.
Cinnamon Roll Cake Frosting Tips
- Set out the butter and cream cheese an hour before baking to reach room temperature. If they’re cold, the frosting may have unpleasant cream cheese chunks. To speed this up, try these quick methods for bringing butter and cream cheese to room temp.
- Don’t skip the flavor enhancers—salt and vanilla extract add essential nuance to the frosting. Even small amounts make a big difference!
- Slowly add powdered sugar to taste. More sugar makes the frosting sweeter and firmer; less keeps it tangier and softer. Adjust to your preference for this Cinnamon Roll Cake!
Quick Tip
A resealable plastic bag makes a great disposable piping bag for the frosting! Just remember to cut a very small tip off–you’ll be surprised how much it spreads!
Adding Frosting To The Cinnamon Roll Cake
Two options:
- Spread the frosting across the cake with a table knife.
- To get that classic cinnamon roll swirl, transfer the frosting to a piping bag or resealable plastic bag. Cut the tip off the bag and pipe the frosting around the cake.
Storage
Cinnamon Roll Cake Storage
This cake is best enjoyed the same day it’s made, especially while warm. Like most homemade cinnamon rolls, this is particularly true with this cake because we’re using biscuits. The biscuits will harden and lose flavor the longer the cake sits out.
More Cinnamon Roll Favorites:
- Cinnamon Roll Cookies with a cream cheese frosting
- Cinnamon Roll Popcorn with a cinnamon-sugar coating
- Miniature Cinnamon Roll Cheesecakes with a graham cracker crust
- Cinnamon Roll Monkey Bread made with canned cinnamon rolls
- Cinnamon Roll Cupcakes using a cake mix
Cinnamon Roll Cake
Equipment
- Pie or cake pan or skillet -- really any size works! (See Note 1)
Ingredients
Cinnamon Roll Cake
- 2 pkgs. (7.5 ounces each) Buttermilk Biscuits Note 1
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 3/4 cup white, granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
Frosting
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
- 2 ounces full-fat brick-style cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract, optional
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a pie pan, cake pan, or skillet with cooking spray.
- Remove biscuits from packages. Flatten each biscuit with a rolling pin or your hands.
- Dip each biscuit in melted butter, shake off excess, then coat generously in cinnamon sugar. Shake off excess. (See Note 2.)
- Tightly roll each biscuit and place them in a spiral pattern in the pan, starting from the outside and working inward.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes. Adjust time for pan size. If the edges cook faster, tent them with foil.
- Meanwhile, use a hand mixer to beat together softened cream cheese and butter until smooth. Mix in vanilla extract, salt, and powdered sugar until creamy.
- Optional: transfer frosting to a piping bag or resealable plastic bag, cut off the tip, and pipe across the cake. Alternatively, spread frosting with a table knife.
- Remove the cake and let it cool for 5-7 minutes before frosting. Pipe frosting over the cake, slice, and serve warm for the best taste!
Video
Recipe Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I would love to try the 30 minute cinnamon roll in the cast iron skillet but I don’t have a cast iron skillet or any other type of skillet that can go in the oven. Can I just use a 8″ round cake pan? Do I need to change anything?
Sure that will work great! The cooking time will likely be different (longer) and you will likely need more biscuits to fill up the pan! 🙂 Enjoy!
Super recipe, super easy! Thank you so much.
You are so welcome! 🙂 Happy you’ve enjoyed it!
I have read all hundred comments but cannot come up with the actual recipe on pinterest.
The recipe isn’t on Pinterest it is above all the comments on this recipe page 🙂
Can you bake this in something other than a skillet?
Absolutely! Use a round pie dish 🙂 It will need more biscuits and likely a longer bake time so you’ll have to keep an eye on it, but it should work out great!
Could you do this with a circle pan if you don’t have a skillet?
Yes – you may need a bit more of the ingredients but it should work out fine!
My wife and I stumbled upon your recipe through the Buzzfeed 39 Skillet Dishes page. Love the idea. Just made our first batch. They taste wonderful but, dang if we shouldn’t have checked the center to make sure they were done. They sure looked done. Anyway, this is just a message to all who try this to go ahead and let these bake to the upper end of the time allotted, then check your centers with a toothpick. Because the outside looked so good and crispy and we were so eager to dive into them, we didn’t realize our mistake until we had iced, cut and plated them. We stuck them back in, icing and all, for another six to eight minutes. Still doughy, but better. Definitely a recipe worth experimenting with. Thanks, Chelsea.
Glad to hear it! I’ve never had a problem with the centers being under-done at the time amount, so it must be a difference in ovens! Either way, checking and then poking with a toothpick should solve the problem 🙂
hi! this looks great! but i live in israel and we dont have any packaged Buttermilk Biscuits :/ do u know how i could make my own? 🙂
I’m sorry I don’t know how to make the kinds of biscuits needed for this recipe to work. I wish I could be of more help!
I love this recipe! I’ve made it twice and even used it once for a dessert after dinner! The recipe is perfect.. especially straight out of the oven when everything is nice and melty! Ahhh… Yum!
So glad to hear you love it! And I couldn’t agree more – right out of the oven is the BEST!
Hi!
Delicious recipes. Can’t wait to try some of them. Just wanted to know what is buttermilk biscuits as I live in South Africa and not sure you get them here. Are they frozen biscuits or are they ready baked? It looks like a crumpet/pancake?
Just made this for Hubster and he LOVED it. Definitely making this again for the upcoming holidays!!!
A few things;
I found it easier to brush the butter on rather than ‘dip’ but I think that is because of the smallish container I used to melt the butter.
I used 2 round cake pans and nested together to give it a thicker ‘wall’ as I didn’t have a small skillet.
I also used just one package of biscuits (Grands size)and didn’t want to open another for just 1 or 2 more and have the rest leftover so it was more of a ‘ring’ but it came out just perfect!
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks so much for sharing your helps for this recipe 🙂 And glad to hear the cake pans worked out well for you 🙂 Thanks for the comment and have a great night!