Soft, pillowy sweet dough filled with cinnamon sugar and topped with a coffee glaze.

I felt like the biggest baking nerd creating this recipe last week. This was a completely unplanned recipe, born out of a serious cinnamon roll craving. I couldn’t get the idea of pillowy, soft sweet dough, filled with cinnamon sugar and twisted into delicate knots out of my head and so I found myself, sitting in front of my computer last week creating a sweet dough spreadsheet. I have a bunch of sweet dough recipes—you can check out my Browned Butter Spelt Cinnamon Buns, Tahini Orange Cinnamon Rolls, and Einkorn Pecan Sticky Buns if you don’t believe me—but they all vary slightly and I wanted to create the perfect sweet dough ratios. I compiled all of my sweet dough recipes into one very organized document, converted everything to baker’s percentages, and then decided what ratios I wanted to use for this recipe. Lo and behold, the perfect sweet dough was born.

The final dough has a fairly high enrichment percentage (milk, butter, and eggs) which makes it moist and soft, perfect for spinning and swirling and rolling into these coffee cinnamon buns.

the dough

This dough is a simple, enriched sweet dough with a high ratio of milk, eggs, and butter. It’s made brioche-style and we start by proofing the yeast in the warm milk. Then the eggs, flour, sugar, and salt, are added and mixed to form a thick dough. With the mixer running on a lower speed, softened butter is incorporated a little at a time, before the mixer speed increases and the dough kneads for a decent amount of time—until it’s smooth and elastic, with a strong network of gluten strands.

The dough rests at room temperature until doubled in size and then there are two options for shaping and the second proof. Option #1: Punch the dough down and transfer it to the refrigerator for an overnight cold proof. In the morning, let the dough warm up slightly, roll it, fill it, and shape it, and then let the buns proof for another 30 minutes or so before baking. Option #2: After the first proof, go ahead and roll, fill, and shape the dough and then transfer the cinnamon buns to the refrigerator for their overnight proof. Give them about an hour at room temperature before baking. You can adapt this recipe to fit your schedule.

the filling and frosting

Because I wanted the dough to be the star, we leaned into simplicity for this recipe. A very classic cinnamon, sugar, and butter filling is smeared over the dough before shaping and I topped them with a strong coffee glaze making them really perfect for lazy weekend mornings.