If You Have Canned Cinnamon Rolls And Bananas, You Have Dessert Worthy Of A Bakery
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Calling all cinnamon roll lovers: As sweet-toothed home bakers know, versatile canned cinnamon roll dough can be used to whip up everything from an impressive breakfast trifle to — as we're exploring today — bistro-worthy banana cinnamon rolls. Despite its luscious presentation, this beginner-friendly dessert doesn't require any tedious measuring or special techniques to nail. All it takes is three ingredients: a can of store-bought cinnamon rolls, a few bananas, and crushed vanilla wafers.
To whip up a batch of banana cinnamon rolls, start by slicing the bananas into coins. Then, roll out the canned dough into a flat rectangle, arranging the coins in neat rows across the entire surface. From there, gently tuck and roll the dough to form one large "roll" with the bananas stuffed inside. Using a large, sharp knife, slice that mega-roll into six thinner rolls, which can be transferred to a square glass baking dish and baked according to the printed package directions on the can. To finish, top each oven-hot roll with a smear of the included frosting and a generous sprinkle of crushed-up vanilla wafers. The wafers add both a kick of vanilla flavor and a crunchy textural element reminiscent of banana pudding.
Not only is this dessert simple and quick to prepare, but it's also super budget-friendly. As of September 2026, at a Walmart in Chicago, an 11-ounce box of Great Value brand vanilla wafers currently costs $2.87, and at $0.20 each, five bananas would cost just $1.00. As Elkin recommends using Grands-style cinnamon rolls, a can of Pillsbury Grands cinnamon rolls costs $4.68, bringing the total cost of this surprisingly elevated dessert to $8.55, or roughly $1.43 per serving. These rolls can also be a thrifty way to use up a bunch of bananas that are about to go bad (hooray for minimizing food waste).
Banana cinnamon rolls come together with just three or four ingredients, depending on your taste
To up the ante even further, these banana cinnamon rolls can also be made with an optional fourth ingredient: heavy cream. For even more moisture in every bite, that cream can be drizzled over the assembled rolls in the baking dish before they go into the oven. The result is a luscious dough with a bread-pudding-inspired texture — and a Reddit thread in r/AskBaking dedicated to this technique sings its praises. "I have tried it[,] and it makes the rolls soft and delicious. The best cinnamon rolls I've ever made," wrote one commenter. "I used about ½ cup of heavy cream on top of the rolls, then [baked] them." Others added that using the heavy cream technique yields a finished product that's more like cinnamon sticky buns than individual cinnamon rolls. As the dough bakes, it soaks up the heavy cream, transforming pillowy dough into a richer, more tender consistency with an ultra-gooey bite. Perhaps best of all, the milk fats, solids, and sugars from the heavy cream pool to create a sweet, sticky syrup along the bottom of the pan, which delivers bold, concentrated flavor in every bite of cinnamon roll. Foodies can experiment with using more or less cream, as desired.
Whether you use the optional cream or stick to the base trio of ingredients, banana cinnamon rolls are a flavorful way to turn canned cinnamon rolls into a bakery-style treat in a mere matter of minutes. Craving more confectionery inspo? Our banana cinnamon roll pound cake recipe is here to help.
3 ingredient Banana Cinnamon Rolls. Shout out to store bought pastries and baked goods for making blank canvas' that act as a muse to my dumb brain. Ingredients 1 container of Cinnamon roll grands 5 bananas 1 cup heavy cream 1/2 cup crushed vanilla wafers