These are soft and fluffy orange cinnamon rolls, with orange zest infused dough and a sweet vanilla orange icing. Perfect for weekend mornings, brunches, or holidays!

I love classic cinnamon rolls, but adding a little bit of orange zest to the dough and filling makes them all the more interesting and delicious! Cinnamon rolls have always been one of my favorite yeast-risen treats to make. Every year around the holidays I make them for friends and family, and throughout the rest of the year you’ll find me making seasonal variations galore.

Orange cinnamon rolls are delicious year round and are absolutely perfect for a cozy weekend or special occasion brunch. Bridal shower brunches, Mothers day, Easter, Christmas morning…the list could go on!

Homemade Orange Cinnamon Rolls

These from-scratch rolls are a mash up between orange rolls and cinnamon rolls. They start with my favorite cinnamon roll dough, which I’ve used in other recipes as well such as browned butter cinnamon rolls. I added a little bit of orange zest to the dough and the filling to infuse orange flavor into every bite. As a final touch, they’re topped with a sweet orange icing. The orange provides a lovely contrast to the sweet and dark cinnamon brown sugar flavors.

Something I love about these rolls is that they are so fluffy, soft, and practically melt in your mouth. Do you ever bite into something and think “oh no” but in a positive way? That’s how I felt biting into these rolls. So soft and tender that I wanted to eat the whole pan!

Ingredients & Equipment Needed

EQUIPMENT

• An electric mixer: I like to use a stand mixer to knead my dough when I’m working with yeast-risen bakes. I find that this way, I’m able to better control the amount of flour that goes in to the dough. When I’m kneading by hand, I often need to add a lot more flour to prevent sticking, which impacts the final texture of the cinnamon rolls. If you don’t have an electric mixer, you can use a hand mixer with hook attachments, or kneading by hand works just fine here! Your rolls may just turn out a little different from mine but will still be delicious
• A 9×13 inch baking dish
• Rolling pin and a flat surface

INGREDIENTS FOR THE DOUGH

• All-purpose flour
• Whole milk: whole milk has more fat, which means more flavor and richer dough. You can substitute skim milk or even non-dairy milk as well, but if you want to go all out then I’d highly recommend whole milk.
• Active dry yeast: make sure that you are using active dry yeast and not instant rise/rapid yeast. The two are different! As an additional note, this recipe calls for 2 ½ tsp of active dry yeast. Most standard packets of yeast contain 2 ¼ tsp. It is completely fine just to use a packet if that’s all you have and the rolls will still turn out great. However, if you buy your yeast in a jar, measuring out that extra ¼ teaspoon just gives these rolls a little extra oomph.
• Granulated sugar
• Fine kosher salt
• Unsalted butter, softened to room temperature and cut into cubes
• One large egg, at room temperature: in order to quickly bring the egg to room temperature, soak it in a bowl of very warm water for 10 minutes.
• Fresh orange zest

INGREDIENTS FOR FILLING

• Dark brown sugar
• Ground cinnamon
• Very soft unsalted butter: you’ll want to get the butter to the point where it may just about melt, but isn’t quite there yet. I find that using butter that’s very soft but not melted helps prevent the filling from completely oozing out of the rolls.
• Orange zest
• Some flour: a little bit of flour in the filling as well will help bind the ingredients together and prevent the filling from oozing out.

Ingredients for Orange Icing

• Powdered sugar
• Fresh orange juice
• Vanilla extract
• Milk

How To Make Orange Cinnamon Rolls

Activate the Yeast

1. Heat milk in the microwave until it is just warm to the touch (around 110 degrees F). Too hot and it’ll kill your yeast. If you have a thermometer, I won’t judge you for pulling it out because I pulled out my heavy duty electric one just to test my milk haha.
2. Stir in a tablespoon of sugar.
3. Sprinkle the yeast on top and gently stir it.
4. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes.

You will know the yeast is ready when it starts to bubble and form a creamy foam at the surface of your milk. It’ll also smell pretty…yeasty for lack of a better word. If you don’t see any foam, then your yeast is probably dead (sorry). Just start over, no big deal!

Make the Rolls

Combine flour, salt, sugar, and orange zest in you mixer, and then pour in the milk, butter, and the egg. Bring the ingredients together to form a dough, and then knead with your mixer for around 5 minutes.

The dough will be very sticky at first but do not panic. It will get smoother and more elastic as you knead it and the gluten strands build up. You can add some additional flour if the dough continues to be super sticky, but try not to over do it. At the end, your ball of dough should pull cleanly from the sides of the mixing bowl, but still stick a little bit at the base. It’ll be tacky but not unmanageable.

Let the dough rise for an hour in a warm spot, and then dump it out onto a floured surface and roll it into a 12×16 inch rectangle. Spread the filling across it in an even layer. Roll the dough into a long tube, cut it into 12 equal pieces, and then lay the pieces into your baking dish to rise again until the rolls are visibly puffed up.

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Once the rolls are ready, bake them until they’re golden brown on top! Try not to over bake, as this will dry out the orange cinnamon rolls.

Top them off with orange icing and serve fresh!

Can I Make These Overnight?

Yes! You can make these orange cinnamon rolls overnight. After forming the rolls and laying them into the baking dish, you can cover them and let them rise overnight in the fridge. In the fridge, they will slowly rise overnight, so that when you get up in the morning all you need to do is preheat your oven and pop them in! This is perfect if you do not have a lot of time in the morning to make the dough.

I recommend letting the rolls warm up a bit on the counter while your oven preheats for the best results.

How Should I Store Leftovers?

Store leftover cinnamon rolls in an airtight container on the counter for up to 3 days. If you need to keep them longer, then store them in the fridge for up to a week. I also recommend warming them up quickly in the microwave before enjoying.

Did You Make This Recipe?

If so, I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to leave a comment or rating to share your thoughts and help others on the internet find this recipe.

Or, take picture and share it with me on Instagram @toppedwithhoney. Looking forward to seeing your super fluffy orange cinnamon rolls!

Have fun baking and check out some other breakfast recipes here! I’m a big fan of this fresh blackberry buckle or maple bourbon banana coffee cake.

Pin & Save for Later

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Fluffiest Orange Cinnamon Rolls