These Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls are the most tender, soft and decadent cinnamon rolls with a brown sugar cinnamon filling and slathered with a delicious icing. What’s the secret to these rolls? Sweet potatoes!
It’s Sunday morning and my favorite day of the week for big delicious breakfasts. But you know that already. So these sweet potato cinnamon rolls are perfect for a Sunday morning.
My husband usually does the grocery shopping, so I had asked him to get me a couple sweet potatoes. I initially planned to make stuffed sweet potato skins, but he brought home these huge sweet potatoes, they would have looked just ridiculous if I had stuffed them. So I baked them a couple days ago and since then I’ve been thinking how to use them.
Yesterday I got the idea of making cinnamon rolls and using some of the sweet potato in the dough. What a great idea. First of all it gave the rolls this gorgeous yellow orange color and secondly it made the texture of the dough so soft and flaky and melt in your mouth. Truly amazing taste.
Love these sweet potato cinnamon rolls or consider yourself a connoisseur when it comes to cinnamon rolls? Try these:
- Cinnabons Cinnamon Rolls
- Finnish Cardamom Rolls
- Strawberry Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing
- Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls
- Apple and Pecan Cinnamon Rolls
If you try this recipe, please let us know! Leave a comment, rate it and tag a photo #jocooks on Instagram so we can see it. I always love to see what you guys come up with!
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Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls
Ingredients
For the dough
- 1 pound sweet potato
- 4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 8 tablespoon butter unsalted, softened
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 cup water lukewarm
- 1 tablespoon active dry yeast
- 2 tablespoon sugar
For the cinnamon filling
- 1 1/3 cup brown sugar
- 2 1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
- 3 tablespoon all-purpose flour
- 8 tablespoon butter unsalted, at room temperature
For the icing
- 2 cups powdered sugar same as confectioners sugar or icing sugar
- 2 tablespoon milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 4 tablespoon butter unsalted, melted
- 1/8 teaspoon salt
Instructions
- Wash and scrub the baked potato(es) and bake it in the oven on the middle rack at 400 F degrees for about 1 hour or until soft when pierced with a fork.
- When the potatoes have cooled, peel them and cut them in small pieces then mash them with the 1 stick of butter. Add in the 3 eggs and 1 cup of the flour and continue mashing until smooth.
- In the bowl of your mixer add the water, yeast and sugar, stir and let it sit for about 10 minutes until yeast has dissolved and it becomes foamy.
- Add potato mixture to the yeast mixture and using the paddle attachment mix for a couple minutes. Add 3 more cups of flour, one cup at a time and mix well. If the dough is too dry add a bit more water, but I didn't need too, there was enough moisture from the sweet potatoes. After the 3 cups of flour have been added in the dough should still be sticky.
- Sprinkle about half a cup of flour over your work surface and scrape the dough onto the floured surface. Knead the dough until it's smooth and elastic, I only kneaded for about a minute, but it depends how sticky your dough is. Butter or oil a large bowl and place the dough in there, cover it with foil and let sit in a warm place until it doubles in size, about an hour.
- In the meantime, make the filling by mixing all the ingredients in a bowl using a fork.
- After the dough has doubled in size, preheat the oven to 425 F degrees. You will need a large baking sheet for this.
- Turn the dough onto your floured surface and roll it out so that it's about 24 inches by 16 inches and about 1/2 inch in thickness. Sprinkle or spread the filling evenly over the dough. Working carefully, from the long edge, roll the dough down to the bottom edge.
- Carefully cut the roll into 12 equal size rolls, so the easiest is to cut the roll in half then cut each half in half and then each quarter in 3 so you end up with 12 equal size rolls. Transfer the rolls onto the baking sheet, wrap with plastic wrap and let rise for another 20 minutes.
- Bake the rolls for about 15 to 20 minutes until they are golden brown.
- In the meantime make the icing by whisking all the icing ingredients together. Spread the icing over the warm rolls and enjoy!
I am considering making these with a butternut squash that is mashed already ~nothing added ~just the squash ~~i have no scale so how many cups would you think to be in pure butternut squash that equals i pound ~ thanks ~~recipe looks good
Maybe 3/4 cup? I’d say around there.
I organized this and it turned out AMAZING! I substituted 3 flax eggs (1 tbsp ground flax to 3 tbsp water per ‘egg’), and used Earth Balance in the tub in place of butter. I used pumpkin pie spice in place of plain cinnamon, but used the same volume of spice mix. I did everything else exactly as written in the recipe.
These are the best cinnamon rolls I’ve ever made, and I’ve made quite a few.
I’m so glad you liked these! 🙂
Fantastic!!!! So flaky and they melt in your mouth!
These turned out great! Had some sweet potato kugel (made without noodles) that had been given to me in a meal box, but I wasn’t a fan. This was a great way to use the sweet potato. The recipe worked out perfectly. Thank you!
Glad you liked it!
Sounds delish…do you think I could add pecans to the filling?
Absolutely!
I have leftover baked sweet potato but no idea what weight it started at. Can you give a general measurement of how much baked sweet potato you used? Thanks!
The cooked versus raw weight won’t be much different, if you use 1lb of your cooked sweet potato that’ll work just fine.
Question, your ingredients state lukewarm water and in the recipe it’s for the yeast but in your notes you talk about milk temps not being to high or it can kill the yeast? I only see milk needed for icing? Which is it? Or am I misunderstanding? Potatoes in oven now!
Those are more generic notes, it refers to milk or water (updated the recipe notes). You’re fine. 🙂
I’m rising this recipe as I type. So, far it seems perfect. I can’t wait till the end. Lol. The only difference was I used sweet potatoes I had canned up from last years crop. I’m sure it will be sooo good. Thanks for the recipe.
sounds good! great use of sweet potatoes!
I’ve been wanting to bake cinnamon rolls for awhile now and I have sweet potatoes too…this sounds like a winner. I love the color the potatoes gives the rolls too.
Hi Lisa,
You’ll love these, just had another one for dinner with caramel syrup, yum!
I have never tried baking with sweet potato, but I think I need to give it a go – your rolls look amazing!
Thanks Rosie, give them a try, I just love the texture of them. 🙂
Oh yummy! I have been obsessed with sweet potato lately and love the texture it gives to baked goods. Great recipe 🙂
Thanks Brooke, yeah this is the first time I actually use sweet potato in baked goods and I was pleasantly surprised. 🙂