This shortcut recipe for quick no yeast cinnamon roll biscuits makes buttery, homestyle rolls that fluff up beautifully—and in record time! Since you’re skipping the yeast, you can also skip the traditional dough rising and kneading and have cinnamon rolls in about 40 minutes. They’re perfect for the times you crave homemade cinnamon rolls, and don’t want to wait!
You know when you wake up and think, “I wish I could have homemade cinnamon rolls right now,” and then you remember you have to wait a million hours for dough to rise and you cry into your boring bowl of cereal? …No? Just me?
I’ve been on a quest to develop a recipe for quick cinnamon rolls that maintain all the flavor and fluff without the patience and work that yeast requires. (Because, in reality, I’m tired but still want to bake something. LOL.) My homemade cinnamon rolls take about 4 and 1/2 hours, or need to be prepped the night before. Even my easy cinnamon rolls require patience, rising, and kneading.
So if you want from-scratch cinnamon rolls NOW, make today’s no yeast biscuit version.
Plus, there’s NO kneading, NO rising, and the dough comes together in just 1 bowl. And you can bake them in a pie dish, cake pan, or even as cinnamon roll muffins. This recipe is dynamite.
Baking soda, melted butter, and buttermilk are also key ingredients in my no yeast bread recipe.
After a few trials and errors, I was shocked with the final result. These no yeast cinnamon rolls taste similar to the yeasted version and only took me about 40 minutes total. Obviously they’re not as flaky and doughy as the traditional, but I don’t think anyone would EVER notice or complain that there’s no yeast. (My 10+ taste testers ooh’d and ahh’d without batting an eye!)
Here are all of the ingredients you need for the dough & filling:
You can go from craving to eating warm, gooey from-scratch cinnamon rolls in record time. Here’s how my recipe works:
The assembly steps are exactly like regular cinnamon rolls, only without the rise time.
Before cutting, you can mark the 14-inch log with a knife to ensure you have 12 even rolls. That’s what I usually do:
Do not incorporate more flour than you need in this dough. I want you to embrace a soft dough. Instead of mixing more flour INTO the dough to make it workable, use extra flour when shaping the rolls. If the dough is sticking to your counter and rolling pin as you work, dust it all with more flour.
Bottom line: Mixing in more flour than you need could result in crumbly, dense rolls. Instead, use it when assembling the rolls.
This cream cheese icing uses a little more butter and a little less confectioners’ sugar than the icing I typically use on cinnamon rolls. But I love that it doesn’t use gobs of confectioners’ sugar; it’s a nice creamy, buttery, tangy blanket for your rolls. You could also try the maple version used on these pumpkin cinnamon rolls, or for a simpler topping, try this vanilla icing instead.
Yes! If you love the slightly crusty, chewy exterior of a cinnamon roll that’s been baked closest to the edge of the pan, try baking these no yeast cinnamon rolls as muffins. After cutting your 12 rolls, place them in a greased standard 12-count muffin pan. Each roll gets that crusty edge all the way around, and they puff up beautifully when they bake. Such a fun recipe!
If you’re on a roll (ha!), try these cinnamon roll cookies too. 😉
This shortcut recipe yields a dozen homestyle biscuit-like cinnamon rolls that fluff up beautifully—without any yeast, kneading, or rise time. They're perfect for the times you crave homemade cinnamon rolls, and don't want to wait!
