Cinnamon Roll Layer Cake with cinnamon in the cake and frosting and the most wonderful cinnamon sugar glaze soaked into the cake layers. A recipe from the new cookbook Simply Beautiful Homemade Cakes by our contributor, Lindsay Conchar.
I’m so excited to share this cake with you today and give you a peek inside my cookbook, Simply Beautiful Homemade Cakes. I’ve been working on this book for a year and half now and it’s such fun to share it with everyone. As you can probably tell from the title, this cookbook is all about the cakes! There are 65 delicious cakes to choose from.
My favorite chapter is of course full of 16 beautiful layered cakes, much like this one. With flavors like Bourbon Spice Toffee Layer Cake, Guinness Chocolate Mousse Cake and Lemon Raspberry Cake, there’s something for everyone.
But I didn’t stop with just layered cakes. The first chapter is all about the simpler side with a few cookie cakes, single layer cakes (hello Red Wine Chocolate Cake!) and some icebox cakes. Those are perfect for when you something a little quicker. There’s also a chapters for cupcakes, ice cream cakes (all using no churn ice cream), cheesecakes (looking at you, Bourbon Peach Streusel Cheesecake) and variety of seasonal cakes.
To top it all off, the final chapter is full of decorating tips and techniques with more than 15 tutorials showing everything from how to set up your cake pans to how to create the ombre effect you see on this cake. While the tutorials aren’t meant for someone who’s more advanced on the decorating scale, it’s a great additional chapter for someone who’s still learning.
Every recipe has a color photo (or two) with each cake, so you know just what you’re going to be making. Plus, the different cakes, fillings and decorating techniques can be mixed and matched to come up with your own awesome creations.
This Cinnamon Roll Layer Cake is definitely one of my favorites from the book. I’m a cinnamon girl all the way and this cake seriously delivers. The cake layers are wonderfully moist and fluffy and pretty straightforward to make. Making the batter begins with creaming the butter and sugar together until it’s light and fluffy.
Next is the sour cream, which adds wonderful moisture and flavor to the cake. The egg whites are next and lend a super soft cake. The remaining steps are adding the wet and dry ingredients.
Once the cakes are baked and cooled, the best part – the cinnamon sugar glaze – is spread over the top of them. With a mix of powdered sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon, this glaze really gives them that cinnamon roll flavor that makes you feel just like you’re eating breakfast.
To finish the cake off, it’s covered in cinnamon frosting! This time around I switched it up and created the ombre effect on the cake by coloring some of the frosting with a mix of copper and ivory (you could use brown). The cake in the book is decorated a little differently and both tutorials are in the book. This cake is absolutely delicious no matter how you decorate it, but that’s always the fun part, right? Besides eating it, of course.
Cinnamon Roll Layer Cake
Cinnamon Roll Layer Cake with cinnamon in the cake and frosting and the most wonderful cinnamon sugar glaze soaked into the cake layers.
- Yield: One 8" Layer Cake
- Category: ✽ ✽ ✽ ✽
Ingredients
For the Cinnamon Cake:
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups sugar
- 3/4 cup sour cream, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 6 large egg whites, room temperature
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 4 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup milk, room temperature
- 1/4 cup water, room temperature
For the Cinnamon Frosting:
- 1 ½ cups salted butter, room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups shortening
- 12 cups powdered sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 4–5 tablespoons water or milk
For the Cinnamon Sugar Glaze:
- 5 tablespoons powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons light brown sugar, loosely packed
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons water
Instructions
Make the Cinnamon Cake:
- Prepare three 8 inch cake pans with parchment paper circles in the bottom and grease the sides. Preheat oven to 350°F (176°C).
- In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together until light in color and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. Do not skimp on the creaming time.
- Add sour cream and vanilla extract and mix until well combined.
- Add egg whites in two batches, mixing until well combined after each. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed to be sure all ingredients are well incorporated.
- Combine dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then combine the milk and water in a small measuring cup.
- Add half of the dry ingredients to the batter and mix until well combined. Add the milk mixture and mix until well combined. Add remaining dry ingredients and mix until well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed to be sure all ingredients are well incorporated.
- Divide the batter evenly between the cakes pans and bake for about 23-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs.
- Remove the cakes from the oven and allow to cool for about 2-3 minutes, then remove to cooling racks to cool completely.
Make the Cinnamon Frosting:
- Beat the butter and shortening together until smooth.
- Slowly add half of the powdered sugar and mix until smooth.
- Add the vanilla extract, ground cinnamon and water or milk and mix until smooth.
- Slowly add remaining powdered sugar and mix until smooth. Set aside.
Make the Cinnamon Sugar Glaze:
- Add the powdered sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon to a small bowl and whisk to combine. Add the water and whisk until smooth.
Assemble the Cake:
- To put the cake together, use a large serrated knife to remove the domes from the top of the cakes so that they’re flat. Place the first cake on a serving plate or a cardboard cake round.
- Spread 2 1/2 tablespoons of cinnamon sugar glaze over the cake layer. Allow it to soak into the cake. Spread 1 cup of frosting in an even layer on top of the cake.
- Repeat the process with the second layer of cake, glaze and frosting, then add the final layer of cake on top. Set cake aside.
- Divide the remaining frosting into 3 bowls, with an extra 1 ½ to 2 cups of frosting in one bowl. Leave the bowl with the larger amount of frosting as is, and color the other two bowls with gel icing color to get two other shades of brown.
- Spread the darkest shade of frosting into an even layer around the bottom of the cake. Add the other colored frosting to the middle of the cake. Finish the top of the cake with the regular uncolored frosting. Smooth out the sides of the cake.
- To finish off the cake, pipe swirls of frosting around the top edge using an open star tip. I combined the remaining frosting (all shades) and allowed the colors to swirl together.
Notes
Store the cake at room temperature in an airtight container.
Excerpted from Simply Beautiful Homemade Cakes: Extraordinary Recipes and Easy Decorating Techniques by Lindsay Conchar. Copyright © 2016. Reprinted with permission from Page Street Publishing Co. All rights reserved.
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Hi, dumb question, but are those butterscotch chips or some other flavor at the bottom of the cake? Thank you.
They are cinnamon chips! (I think)
Thank you Catherine! I didn’t even know those existed, but apparently my local WalMart carries them so I know what I’ll be doing this weekend 🙂
Tasty, Mouth watering.
This cake recipe is so freaking good. I did a little something different with it though! I made cup cakes and added chopped cooked bacon to the batter. Made maple butter cream frost and topped with candy bacon bites woooow! I love this blog. It gives me a ton of inspiration.
That sounds delicious Stephanie!!
Amazing!!!!! Do I have to use gel icing color or the glaze itself should color the frosting? Thanks!
You’ll need to use a food color to tint the frosting if you want to create the same striped icing effect as Lindsay did in the cake above.
Really stunning, beautiful Cake! I can hardly wait to make it! 💗💗💗💗💗💗🍰😄
Hi. As a newbe to layer cakes and other methods of icing/frosting apart from icing sugar a dab of butter and a lil water or milk. Yes, could be quite stiff but worked well for many years for lunch boxes and smokos without refrigeration. Anyway have been trying all sorts of new things through printerest, i have made your cinnamon roll cake. Oh wow…so impressed with myself for doing so well. My girlfriend absolutely loved it, as I’d made for her birthday cake. Great cake. One thing though- shortening- in australia copha is used- this has to be melted, let cooled a then used. It is too soild to beat with butter. It stays in lumps even at room temperature. So aussie girls take care with this first step. It does work. Even for a learner like me. Id like to paste a pic but not sure how. Learners can make this cake. Cheers.
Oh, thanks for the feedback Sandra. I’ve learned something new about Australian shortening!! If needed, butter is a fine substitute for shortening as well. Cheers!
I made this cake today with my daughter. The cake was excellent but the recipe makes way too much frosting. I used 1.5 c butter and only 1 c shortening. Even with my 8 year old decorating the top with a whole layer of stars, we only used half of the frosting we made. Very good but I could not imagine using all the frosting with 12 c of sugar!
Does anyone know how gluten free flour affects the recipe?
I made this recipe with GF flour and it was PURE PERFECTION.
I bake quite frequently and sell my cakes from time to time. I’ve recently had requests for GF things so I tested a couple different flours on different recipes. By far my favorite GF flour is Bob’s Red Mill Gluten Free Flour. I found it at Super Target but not sure who else carries it. It’s a 1-for-1 flour meaning you use the same amount as regular flour. It’s quite pricey (about $9 for 2lbs of it) but worth it if you need GF.
I’ve also used it to make cookies and it’s awesome!
I also found that this frosting recipe made a little too much. I put a pretty thick layer between all three layers and all over the cake plus I did the little rosettes on top and still had a full 12″ piping bag leftover. Probably just need 3/4 of the recipe for the frosting.
How long do you need to leave the milk and sour cream out to be room temperature?
It depends on how cold or warm your room is – but about an hour does the trick.
I can’t seem to find my 8 inch pans, but I do see my 3 6inch pans. Any tips on how to reduce the amount of ingredients to fit that size? Thanks!
If i were you, i’d just make a whole batch and bake cupcakes with the leftover batter hahaha. Sorry not helping much with your question
Hilda is actually right! You’ll be able to bake most, if not all, of the batter in your three 6″ round pans. Just be sure to fill them no more than 2/3 full (so they don’t overflow) and increase your bake time as needed.
Hello Lindsay.
Thank you for sharing your recipes with us. I just baked the cinnamon roll cake and tasted bits that got stuck in the pans. It is gorgeous and very moist. However, the cake is for tomorrow. Did you tested to put in refrigerator? Will the texture be affected if i do? thank you fro replying back. 🙂
This cake will hold at room temperature, so it will keep just fine on the counter until tomorrow. Alternatively, there should not be any issue with storing it in the refrigerator either. Enjoy!
Im pretty bummed about this cake and not sure where it went wrong. I followed the recipe to a tee and my cake layers came out SUPER dense, flat and almost rubbery. I used all fresh ingredients so maybe thats the way its supposed to turn out? Not my kind of cake. The smell and flavoring is amazing but not sure I want to serve this to my guests tomorrow. 🙁
Mine came out thin as well so I would love to see if this is how they are supposed to turn out and if the Frosting is supposed to make it look fuller
I’m sorry to hear you had trouble Anna. This recipe makes enough batter for two regular 8″ round pans. Lindsay baked this in three 8″ rounds, creating intentionally shorter layers. They bake a little faster, have less cake that has to be cut off to level and creates a pretty torted presentation without having to do a lot of cutting. Torting cake layers can be a such a pain! As for it being rubbery, my only guess is that it needed a few more minutes in the oven.
I made this for the first time and I used 3 – 8 inch pans but they almost came out as thin as pancakes. Is that normal being that I followed the directions exactly. Is it supposed to look fuller one I layer it?
Hi Teisha – This recipe makes enough batter for two regular 8″ round pans. Lindsay baked this in three 8″ rounds, creating intentionally shorter layers. They bake a little faster, have less cake that has to be cut off to level and creates a pretty torted presentation without having to do a lot of cutting. So yes, they will be shorter than a traditional cake layer.
I made this cake for my sons birthday and it was a HUGE hit! I used a different buttercream recipe (12 cups of sugar seemed a bit craZy!)
Thanks for sharing this recipe. I will be making it a lot!
my cakes came out very thin and flat? why?
I see the cinnamon chips in the picture but not the recipe. Are they just in the bottom layers and how much??
I just finished making this cake, except I made three 6 inch tiers. The recipe for the cake is delicious! I added a couple tablespoons extra of milk, a teaspoon extra of vanilla extract, and a couple sprinkles extra of cinnamon to the frosting. The frosting is good, but it makes over double what I needed (although I know there is a different surface area with 3 smaller tiers than 2 larger tiers, although it still seems like a ton of frosting).
I definitely will be making the cake again, although next time I will try to find a frosting without shortening as that isn’t my favorite flavor/texture. I shopped for the ingredients this morning and didn’t buy food coloring as it wasn’t listed as an ingredient and I didn’t read through all the instructions, so my cake has the same color frosting all over – but it still turned out pretty.
Overall, I highly recommend this cake recipe.
I just made this cake for a Superbowl Party and it was fantastic!! Tastes like a Cinnabun! Great Recipe! I baked it in 3 – 6″ pans and 4 cupcakes.