This Cinnamon Roll Cake Recipe skips the yeast and rising time for a fast, easy bake. Finish it with a quick cream cheese glaze and serve warm.
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? With 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, I use them for a breakfast favorite; Biscuits and Gravy!
Featured Comment
“Holy Cow!! This was DELICIOUS!!!! My family rated it a 20+ out of 10! Fantastic…and so easy. I don’t have a skillet, so just used an 8″ cake pan, and it worked perfectly. THANK YOU for the awesome recipe!”
– Kara
How To Make This Cinnamon Roll Cake Recipe
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, whip up the glaze to spread over the warm cake!
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.
I often make this cake in a small 6 to 8-inch cast iron skillet, but if I’m feeding others or feeling extra hungry, I 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 Glaze Tips
- Set out the butter and cream cheese an hour before baking to reach room temperature. If they’re cold, the glaze may have unpleasant cream cheese chunks. To speed this up, try these quick methods for bringing butter and cream cheese to room temp.
- Salt and vanilla extract add essential flavor to the glaze. Even small amounts make a big difference!
- Slowly add powdered sugar to taste. More sugar makes the glaze sweeter and firmer; less keeps it tangier and softer. Adjust to your preference for this Cinnamon Roll Cake!
Storage
Cinnamon Roll Cake Recipe 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:
Desserts
Cinnamon Roll Cookie Recipe
Desserts
Cinnamon Roll Popcorn
Desserts
Cinnamon Roll Cheesecakes
Breakfast
Cinnamon Roll Monkey Bread
Cinnamon Roll Cake Recipe
Video
Equipment
- Pie pan or cake pan or skillet—really any size works! see note 1
Ingredients
- 2 7.5-ounce packages buttermilk biscuits see note 1
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter melted
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 2 ounces cream cheese softened see note 1
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter softened
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons milk I use whole milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Prepare Pan: Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a pie pan, cake pan, or skillet with cooking spray.
- Flatten Biscuits: Remove biscuits from packaging. Flatten each with a rolling pin or your hands.
- Coat Biscuits: Dip each biscuit in melted butter, shake off excess, then coat in cinnamon sugar. Shake off excess again (see Note 2).
- Assemble Cake: Roll biscuits tightly and arrange in a spiral pattern in the prepared pan, starting at the outside edge and working inward.
- Bake: Bake for 20–25 minutes, adjusting for pan size. If edges brown too quickly, tent with foil.
- Make Glaze: Beat cream cheese and butter until smooth. Add powdered sugar, milk, vanilla, and salt. Beat until light and fluffy.
- Glaze Cake: Let cake cool 5–7 minutes. Spoon glaze over warm cake, letting it drip into crevices. Add more glaze once cooled slightly, if desired. Slice and serve warm.
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!