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Why You’ll Love My Recipe
Cinnamon rolls are already a spectacular treat. This recipe takes them up a level by adding a decadent sauce made with vanilla ice cream, butter, and brown sugar. You’ll be ruined for other rolls.
If these rolls are a bit too sweet for you, try these Quickie Homemade Cinnamon Rolls or a Banana Cinnamon Roll Casserole instead. And if you have some leftover cinnamon rolls around, why not make some Leftover Cinnamon Rolls French Toast Casserole?
Karlynn’s Recipe Notes
- Skill Level: This recipe takes some time, skill, and patience.
- Total Time: Making these cinnamon rolls will take you approximately 3 hours from start to finish. Most of that is rising time for the dough.
- Variations: Try adding raisins, chopped dates, pecans, or walnuts to the dough for these rolls. Try a maple pecan ice cream instead of vanilla. Use a Whipped Cream Cheese or Cream Cheese Glaze or skip the cream cheese topping altogether if you prefer.
- Tools Needed: For this recipe, you’ll need a stand mixer with dough hook, a medium pot, a small bowl, a serrated knife, and two 8×8 baking pans.
What You’ll Need For Ingredients
Butter: Every element of this recipe requires butter. Most of the butter needs to be unsalted, but you’ll need a small amount of salted butter for the sauce. If you’d rather not buy two separate types, just use unsalted and add a pinch of salt.
Ice Cream: This recipe calls for vanilla ice cream but you can get creative and use something with nuts or caramel if you want. Just make sure it’s real dairy ice cream rather than frozen dessert.
Cinnamon Rolls: If you’d like to speed things along, you could buy canned rolls, but this is the kind of recipe that’s best with homemade cinnamon rolls. The patience and effort is worth it in the end.
Cream Cheese Icing: This recipe includes the ingredients and instructions to make your own icing, but if you’d like to use a can of icing from the store that’s fine too.
How To Make Ice Cream Cinnamon Rolls
This is a brief overview of the recipe. The full list of ingredients and step-by-step instructions are in the recipe card below.
- Scalding The Milk: Put whole milk, butter, and white sugar into a small pot. Heat at medium-high heat until butter is melted, sugar is dissolved, and milk is steaming. Remove from heat. Let it cool and then whisk in the beaten egg yolks and salt.
- Proofing The Yeast: Add the warm water and 1 teaspoon of sugar to the bowl of your stand mixer. Stir until the sugar dissolves. Add yeast. stir until dissolved, and let sit until the mixture starts bubbling.
- Making The Dough: Add the milk mixture to the mixing bowl. Attach dough hook, add first two cups of flour, and mix on low until combined. Add next 1-2 cups of flour, mixing slowly, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and barely sticks to your fingers.
- Keep kneading the dough in the stand mixer for another 10 minutes. Cover bowl with a damp towel and put somewhere warm for an hour.
- Once the dough has doubled in size, punch it down. Dust a flat surface with flour and turn your dough onto it. Spread the dough, first with your hands and then with a rolling pin, until you have a 17″x21″ rectangle.
- Mix melted butter, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a small bowl. Spread the mixture onto the dough. Roll the dough into a tight log, sealing the edges of the dough together with your fingers.
- Slice the log into 8 even pieces. Divide the rolls into two 8×8 baking pans, four pieces per pan.
- Preparing the Vanilla Ice Cream Caramel Sauce: In a small pot, combine the vanilla ice cream, salted butter, and brown sugar. Bring to boil over medium-high heat. Remove from heat as soon as everything is melted. Pour sauce over both pans of rolls, making sure to pour some on top of the rolls. Set rolls aside for 45 minutes or until they double in size.
- Preheat oven to 325℉. Bake rolls for 45-55 minutes. Make frosting while you wait.
- Cream Cheese Frosting: Beat butter and cream cheese together in a large bowl until smooth. Beat in the icing sugar and then one tablespoon of cream at a time until the icing is the consistency you want.
- Remove rolls from oven and let cool for 5 minutes, then slather with frosting.
Karlynn’s Tips and Tricks for Making Grandma’s Ice Cream Cinnamon Rolls
Slicing: Try using a serrated knife to slice your cinnamon rolls. It will bite it’s way through the door more smoothly than a normal blade. Another technique that works for many people is to use a piece of cooking twine or unflavoured dental floss to cut doughs like this.
Perfectly Baked Rolls: Don’t under or overbake the rolls. They should be perfectly cooked when they hit 190℉ in the center. You don’t want to dry them out, but you do want them to be fully cooked rather than gooey. If the tops are getting too brown too quickly, cover the pan in foil for the last few minutes of baking time.
Storage Instructions
Keep these in a covered container at room temperature for 2-3 days, or in the fridge for a bit longer.
More Delicious Sweet Bread Recipes
This cinnamon roll recipe starts with a sweet bread dough, Easter Bread (Ukrainian Babka Recipe). Babka can come in many shapes and forms, like chocolate babka or this Babka Monkey Bread.
For something a bit lighter but still sweet, try some Pretty Darn Perfect Sweet Dinner Rolls or Old-Fashioned Southern Honey Butter Rolls.
There, now you’ll be ruined for any other cinnamon roll recipe! Try these rolls and let me know what you think.
Happy Baking!
Karlynn
Grandma’s Ice Cream Cinnamon Rolls
Equipment
- 1 Rolling Pin
- 1 serrated knife
- 2 8×8 baking pans
Ingredients
Scalded Milk Mixture
- 1 cup whole milk
- ½ cup butter
- 6 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 3 large egg yolks , beaten
- 1 teaspoon salt
Yeast Mixture
- ¾ cup water , heated to 115℉
- 1 teaspoon granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon active dry yeast yeast
Dry Ingredients
- 5-6 cups all-purpose flour
Cinnamon Sugar Filling
- 2 cups brown sugar, well packed
- ¾ cup salted butter, softened
- 2 ½ tablespoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg
Vanilla Ice Cream Caramel Sauce
- 1 ½ cup vanilla ice cream, has to be real dairy ice cream
- 1 ½ cup brown sugar
- ½ cup salted butter
Cream Cheese Icing
- 2-4 tablespoons whipping cream
- 4 ounces cream cheese
- ¼ cup salted butter
- 1 cup powdered sugar
Instructions
Prepare the Scalded Milk Mixture
- Place the whole milk, butter, and white sugar in a small saucepan. Heat the mixture over medium-high heat until the butter and sugar are dissolved. To scald the milk, continue to heat the mixture until the milk is steaming, then remove from the heat. Do not let it boil. You can also do this in the microwave (my Mom's trick) in a large glass microwave-safe measuring cup.
- Let the mixture cool.
- Once cooled, whisk the beaten egg yolks into the mixture. Stir in the salt.
Proof the Yeast
- In the mixing bowl of your stand mixer, add the 115℉ water and one teaspoon of granulated sugar. Mix together, then add the yeast. Stir until the yeast starts to dissolve, then let sit until the entire mixture is bubbling.
Make the Dough
- Once the yeast has been proofed, pour the milk and egg mixture into the mixing bowl. Attach your dough hook.
- Add the first two cups of flour into the mixing bowl, and using the dough hook, mix on low until combined.
- Add the next 1-2 cups of flour, mixing in slowly with the dough hook. Add enough flour until the dough barely sticks to your hands, pulls away from the sides of the bowl, and starts to smooth out. This can take up to 6 cups of flour in total or slightly more, depending on factors like humidity.
- Knead for another 10 minutes with the dough hook. Cover the dough bowl with a damp, clean kitchen towel. Place in a warm place for an hour or until the dough has doubled in size.
- Once the dough is ready, punch it down in the bowl.
- Dust your work surface with flour. Turn out the dough onto the floured surface. Create a rectangle with the dough with your hands right at the start, not a circle. Use a heavy rolling pin to roll the dough into a 17 ×21-inch rectangle.
- Combine the melted butter, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a small bowl. Spread out the mixture in an even layer on top of the dough rectangle, leaving a ¼ inch edge of plain dough at one of the 17-inch ends of the dough rectangle. This will help you seal the dough together after you roll it.
- Roll the dough tightly into a log, starting at the 17-inch end of the dough rectangle covered in butter and cinnamon.
- Pinch the roll closed using the plain dough, then place the log seam-side down on your work surface.
- For perfect cinnamon buns, use a serrated knife to trim ½ inch off the ends of the roll, removing the dough that doesn't have filling in it. You don't have to do this, but this will make them all perfect. You can bake up the little ends later if wanted, or discard them.
- Slice the log into eight pieces that are 2 inches wide.
- Get out two 8×8 baking pans.
- Place four rolls into each pan.
Prepare the Vanilla Ice Cream Caramel Sauce
- Combine the ingredients for the sauce in a saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium-high heat, ensuring all the ingredients have melted together, then remove from the stove immediately.
- Pour the sauce over each pan of cinnamon rolls, splitting between the two pans. Make sure to cover the top of the rolls with sauce. Place in a warm place to rise again for 45 minutes, or until the rolls have doubled in size. You do not have to cover them if you made sure there is sauce on top so that they don't dry out.
- Move your oven rack to the second-from-the-bottom position. Preheat your oven to 325℉.
- Bake the rolls for 45-55 minutes until the edges are golden and the centers have risen and are puffy. If the tops start to get too brown, lay a piece of aluminum foil over the top and continue to bake. The rolls are baked when an instant-read thermometer inserted into the middle of the dough reads 190℉.
- While the cinnamon rolls are baking, prepare the cream cheese icing. Beat the butter and cream cheese together until smooth. Beat in the powdered sugar, then beat in the cream, one tablespoon at a time, until the desired consistency is reached.
- Remove from the oven and let cool for 5 minutes.
- Slather icing on top of the cinnamon buns and serve right away, drizzling the ice cream sauce over top of the cream cheese icing.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Paulette Tybussek says
Cake mix chocolate chip cookie recipe
Paulette Tybussek says
Love your cherry cake mix cookies. Do u have a basic chocolate chip cookie mix cookie recipe that you know is good? Even if it is from someone else. I need it to make this Friday but would need to get ingredients tomorrow 7-21.
It’s for my mother in laws funeral. Making the cherry cookies for sure, just wanted a chocolate chip also.