Cardamom Cinnamon Rolls

Soft and fluffy Cardamom Cinnamon Rolls with a frangipane style almond filling spiced with aromatic cardamom and cinnamon. The rolls are topped with the fun decorative crunch of pearl sugar and a quick vanilla drizzle.

Jump to:

• Tell me about these rolls
• Equipment Notes
• Ingredient Notes for the Dough
• How to Make Cardamom Brioche Dough
• Quick Tips for the Dough
• Ingredient Notes for the Filling
• How to Make Cardamom Cinnamon Rolls
• Expert Tips
• Quick Drizzled Topping
• Making these Rolls Ahead
• Storage Advice
• Substitutes and Variations
• FAQs
• More cardamom filled recipes
• Cardamom Cinnamon Rolls

Tell me about these rolls

• Loaded with aromatic cardamom - not only is there cardamom in the filling but I've even added spice to the dough to make a soft and fluffy cardamom brioche for these rolls.
• Fluffy and flavorful frangipane style filling - rolled into each bun is a sweet cardamom spiced almond filling with the texture of a frangipane.
• Crunchy pearl sugar - these rolls are topped off with large coarse pieces of sugar giving style and texture to the finished rolls, reminiscent of Swedish style bakes.

Equipment Notes

To make these rolls, you'll need a lot of the equipment that you'll come to find as standard for my cinnamon roll recipes:

• An 8" or 9" square baking pan
• Parchment paper - for lining the pan
• A stand mixer fitted with a dough hook
• Mixing bowls - for this recipe, you'll want one large bowl for proofing the dough and another for mixing up the filling. A third bowl can be useful for the frosting, or just wash out the filling bowl for this purpose - it doesn't need to be very large!
• Rolling pin - I've used all sorts of things in place of rolling pins (it's one of the great versatilities of a wine bottle!). But ideally you'll want a good long rolling pin here to help you get a large rectangle of dough when assembling.
• Offset spatula - you can really just use a table knife or normal spatula here, but a small offset spatula is a game changer for ease and simplicity!
• Dental floss - using a flavorless dental floss to cut your rolls is a simple way to help you ensure nice round rolls for baking.
• A piping bag - this isn't 100% required but will make it easier to drizzle your frosting over the top.

Ingredient Notes for the Dough

My dough in this recipe is essentially the same as my standard brioche cinnamon roll dough. This is with one main change: added cardamom! I'm a cardamom lover, so I took this opportunity to add it to as much of the roll as possible - go big or go home!

So, for this recipe, you'll need:

• Milk - full fat or whole milk, warmed to 104ºF. The temperature here doesn't need to be super precise, but it should be within the range of about 104º-120º for optimal yeast activation.
• Dry active yeast - you can also use instant yeast here interchangeably.
• Sugar - granulated or caster sugar. This is divided in the recipe - a teaspoon being added to the milk will help to enliven the yeast, while the rest goes straight into the bowl with the dry ingredients.
• Flour - a combination of all purpose (or plain) flour and bread flour will give you the light and fluffy texture that is the signature to my brioche style rolls.
• Salt
• Ground cardamom - you can buy pre-ground cardamom, if not in your local grocery stores, than certainly online. In my opinion, it is worth buying the ground variety, rather than trying to grind your own from cardamom seeds, removed from pods. But this is entirely up to you!
• Eggs - large eggs, ideally at room temperature.
• Butter - unsalted butter softened at room temperature and chopped into small pieces. You can also use salted butter here, but it will add salt to the overall recipe. You might therefore want to reduce the added salt in the dough, but it is more difficult to gauge and control this way.

How to Make Cardamom Brioche Dough

This dough follows a similar process to my other brioche doughs, such as my classic Brioche Cinnamon Roll recipe.

1. Start by greasing a mixing bowl with some butter or flavorless oil. Set this aside - you'll use this for proofing your dough later.
2. Sprinkle the yeast and a teaspoon of sugar over your warm milk, giving it a little stir and then set aside for the yeast to activate.
3. Add the flours, remaining sugar, salt and cardamom to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Give it a stir.
4. When the yeast is ready, add this milk mixture straight to the flour mixture and then add your eggs.
5. Turn the mixer onto a low setting and knead for about 15 minutes until a dough has come together and is starting to pull itself away from the sides of the bowl or slap the sides of the bowl.
6. After the 15 minutes, with the mixer still on a low setting, slowly (and carefully) add the butter a few pieces at a time. Once all added, allow to continue kneading for 15 minutes until you again have a dough that is showing signs of holding itself together and slapping the sides of the bowl.
7. Scrape the dough into your prepared greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight (or for about 8 hours) until doubled in size.

Quick Tips for the Dough

If you've made my cinnamon rolls before, you'll probably be familiar with my tips by now! But even if you haven't we're going to try our best to get you the perfect brunch!

• I know that 30 minutes of kneading sounds like a lot, and it is - but that's why I call for the stand mixer. Any bread dough can technically be kneaded by hand, but it would take a lot longer and be a lot messier.
• Brioche is a wet dough - this is because it is enriched with milk, eggs and plenty of butter. Don't worry if it is still sticking to the sides of your bowl after you've followed all the steps here. It happens, and might just be a result of a hot kitchen or too soft butter - this won't normally impact the final results. You can knead for a few extra minutes, but eventually, just scrape it into the bowl and let it proof.
• Don't worry too much about the overnight proofing time - you don't need to set yourself a 3am alarm, just because you made the dough at 7pm. I regularly leave mine to proof for up to 12 hours and still make fab rolls! I've also had success with short proofs of only about 6 hours.

Ingredient Notes for the Filling

The thing that makes these rolls super special is the cinnamon cardamom frangipane filling. That's right: cinnamon, cardamom and a fluffy sugar almond mixture all baked right in.

You'll need:

• Butter - unsalted butter, softened at room temperature. In the case of the filling, it is harder to offset the salt if you opt to use salted butter.
• Sugar - granulated sugar or caster sugar work best here.
• Almond flour - or finely ground almonds.
• Ground cinnamon
• Ground cardamom
• Almond extract - this is technically optional, but a dash of almond extract will go a long way in accentuating the flavours in this recipe and works really well with the cardamom.
• Egg - you'll want a large egg, ideally at room temperature. For the filling you will only need the egg white. Save the yolk for an egg wash as you bake your rolls.

How to Make Cardamom Cinnamon Rolls

These cardamom cinnamon rolls with brioche dough are actually quite straightforward to assemble, once you've got your dough!

1. Once your dough has completed its first proof, leave this in the refrigerator to stay cool while you prep your pan and filling.
2. Line your baking pan with parchment paper and set aside.
3. For the filling, simply mix together all the filling ingredients (reserving the yolk from the egg for an egg wash) in a mixing bowl until you have a spreadable paste (image 1 below).
4. Dust a work surface with flour and scrape your dough out onto it, press the dough into a rectangle. Then using a rolling pin to roll out to about 12" wide by 15" long.
5. Spread the filling mixture over the surface of the dough, leaving a small gap around the edges.
6. Then roll up from bottom to top to form a tight log (image 2 below).
7. Use the floss to trim about an inch or so off each end of the log, removing unfilled and uneven dough. Then divide the remaining log into 9 and slice using the floss.
8. Place these rolls in your baking pan and cover with a clean kitchen towel to proof at room temperature for about 2 hours, until doubled in size.
9. Preheat the oven to 350ºF and make a quick egg wash with the remaining egg yolk from your filling.
10. Brush the rolls with the egg wash and sprinkle over a generous handful of pearl sugar (image 3 below).
11. Bake in the centre of the oven for about 30 minutes, until risen and golden on top.
12. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for about 10 minutes (image 4 below) while you prepare the frosting drizzle.

Expert Tips

• You want to keep the dough in the refrigerator as long as possible prior to assembling. Brioche is a wet and sticky dough - the warmer it gets, the harder it will be to handle, especially if it is a hot day!
• The spicing to the filling can be adjusted to personal preference. The measurements given will pack a cardamom punch alongside the cinnamon. You can experiment and try other combinations, but I recommend keeping the overall spices to about 1 tablespoon (or 4 teaspoons).
• You don't have to use the egg wash or the pearl sugar here. But, if you are planning to use the pearl sugar, you will need the egg wash to help the flecks stick to the rolls!
• These rolls bake a bit longer than my usual cinnamon rolls due to the filling. You want to make sure your fluffy frangipane mixture is also cooked and the tops of the rolls a gorgeous golden!

Quick Drizzled Topping

To finish these rolls off, I like to add a quick drizzle of vanilla glaze. You'll need:

• Powdered sugar - or icing sugar. This doesn't normally need sifted for this recipe.
• Vanilla extract - vanilla compliments the overall roll, without overshadowing the cardamom and almond coming through. If you want to pack more of an almond punch, you can substitute with almond extract here. Be aware almond extract tends to be a stronger flavor than vanilla, so only use a little or you may find the glaze overpowering.
• Milk - I like to use full fat or whole milk, but 2% or semi-skimmed work here too.

Just mix the ingredients together until smooth and lump free. Then drizzle over the top of your rolls!

Quick tip: using a piping bag will make drizzling easier to get nice lines and patterns over the top of the rolls.

Making these Rolls Ahead

Probably the top question for any cinnamon roll recipe is about making ahead! It can seem like a lot of work to be assembling homemade cinnamon rolls for brunch. But, be assured, the majority of the work with these rolls actually takes place the day before anyway. Kneading and making the dough the night before for a slow proof means that the most time consuming activity is already behind you - the assembling part is actually pretty quick in practice!

If you want to get an even further head start, you absolutely can:

• You can make the dough the morning before you intend to serve, let this slow proof in the fridge during the day.
• Then assemble, proof and bake the night before.
• Don't frost at this stage - just let them cool and wrap for the next day.
• Reheat them in the oven to serve warm and glaze as normal.

Storage Advice

So, I always maintain a fresh cinnamon roll can't be beat - so these are best straight from the oven. But, they're also actually great as leftovers. Unlike some cinnamon roll recipes, where filling or frostings require significant special treatment, these rolls can be wrapped well (once cool) and kept for a couple of days at room temperature with success.

Substitutes and Variations

These are some of my favorite suggestions for substitutes and variations:

• Different nut flours - while this recipe calls for almond flour in the filling, you could use any finely ground nut flour here, or even a coconut flour. These will offer different flavors to the overall recipe and depending on the grind, may change the texture of the filling slightly.
• Play around with the spice mix - you can mix and match your favorite spices in these rolls. Cardamom and cinnamon go together, but ginger, nutmeg and allspice all work well too.
• To frost or not to frost - the easiest change for a cinnamon roll is the frosting! The drizzle on these rolls is purposefully light, so as not to take away from the pearl sugar. If you'd rather get a nice thick frosting, leave off the pearl sugar and use one of my other glazes, like my creamy vanilla frosting from my Funfetti Cinnamon Rolls or the chai latte frosting from my Chai Rolls. A cream cheese icing like my in my Blueberry Cinnamon Rolls goes well here too.

FAQs

More cardamom filled recipes

If you're a cardamom lover, give these a try:

• Pistachio Cardamom Cake
• Cardamom Pistachio Buns