Triple The Flavor Of Canned Cinnamon Rolls With This Pan Hiding At The Back Of Your Cabinet

Few people can turn down a tray of freshly baked cinnamon rolls. Warm and gooey, with a familiar scent that can blanket an entire house, there's really nothing better to dish out on a lazy weekend morning. But while cinnamon rolls are pretty straightforward to make, they do require a bit of planning ahead because of their long proofing times. However, you can avoid all of that if you use canned dough — and there's a good chance you have another secret weapon hiding in your cabinet that can transform ready-made rolls into a bakery-level treat: a Bundt pan. 

When you bake cinnamon rolls in a Bundt pan, they mold together into a fun, evenly baked, pull-apart cake with a delicious, syrupy coating and caramelized exterior. You can just place the rolls into the pan and bake, but if you take advantage of a few tips and tricks, you can really amp up the flavor. Recipe developer Jessica Morone shared her recipe for cinnamon roll monkey bread with Tasting Table and the first thing she recommends doing is cutting up the rolls into balls and coating them in a balanced ratio of cinnamon and sugar. This will enhance the sweetness and texture of each bite, and ensure that all of the dough is coated when it hits the oven. It will also give the rolls an even better rise as the increased volume and layered structure will entrap steam, creating a softer result. 

You can elevate the canned dough further by coating the cinnamon sugar-coated dough balls in a mixture of melted butter and brown sugar, after adding them to the Bundt pan. We like to do this in stages, first drizzling half of the dough, before layering in more dough balls and repeating. You can add the butter and sugar directly to the bottom of the pan, too. You can also try pouring heavy cream over the dough instead of syrup. A little caramel at the bottom of the pan would elevate the treat, too. You can even sprinkle in some nuts for an added crunch.

You can just follow the instructions on the back of the cinnamon roll package, but the monkey bread should only take about 30 minutes or so to bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit. You'll know it's ready when it's puffed up and golden. Most store-bought cinnamon roll brands will provide some sort of icing, which you can even use to glaze the Bundt cake once it's baked. If not, here's an easy cream cheese frosting recipe.

Morone recommends using three cans of dough for this recipe, but two is fine if that's all you have. If you don't own a Bundt pan, a muffin tin or loaf pan can work, too. You can also turn canned cinnamon rolls into a bakery-style treat using the air fryer, or boost the flavor by brûléeing the top with torched sugar. Since none of these tricks require much time spent proofing or prepping, you really can make breakfast easy.