Easy Raspberry Cinnamon Buns with Almond Cream Cheese Frosting

This small batch raspberry cinnamon roll recipe is perfect to make a few heart-shaped buns for an extra special brunch treat! Cinnamon dough with an almond raspberry filling and topped with a quick and easy almond cream cheese frosting.

Ingredients for Fresh Raspberry Cinnamon Buns

This recipe is split into three parts:

1. Cinnamon dough
2. Fresh raspberry filling
3. Almond cream cheese frosting

For the Dough

You'll need:

• Flour - for this cinnamon dough, you'll want strong white bread flour.
• Sugar - a couple tablespoons of light brown (muscovado) sugar for the dough recipe. You'll also need just a bit of granulated sugar, to help activate the yeast.
• Milk - use either full fat or whole milk. This needs to be warmed to a comfortably lukewarm temperature (about 113°F is ideal for yeast). If you heat in the microwave or on the stovetop, be sure that you allow it to cool a bit before adding the yeast.
• Dry active yeast
• Ground cinnamon
• Salt
• Egg - one large egg.
• Butter - unsalted butter, softened to room temperature.

Raspberry Filling

• Raspberries - fresh raspberries, smashed with a fork to release their juices.
• Cornstarch - or cornflour in the UK. This helps to thicken the juices of the raspberries to prevent these buns becoming soupy.
• Ground cinnamon
• Almond extract
• Butter - unsalted butter, soft enough to spread over the dough.

Using Raspberries in Baking

So you may notice that many recipes will call for frozen raspberries. These may be more convenient to use depending on your location and the season.

I would normally recommend fresh raspberries for the best flavour, but you can certainly substitute with frozen raspberries in this recipe.

To use frozen raspberries, allow them to defrost first. Frozen fruits are often softer and will break down more easily, so these are likely not to require as much smashing as the fresh.

Almond Cream Cheese Frosting

This is an incredibly simple three ingredient spread:

• Spreadable cream cheese - the soft spreadable variety is the only option in the UK and in fact the best option for a quick soft and tangy frosting.
• Powdered sugar - also known as icing sugar or confectioners sugar. My recipe will provide measurements, but these can be adjusted to taste.
• Almond extract - just a little almond extract goes a long way! And makes for a delicious tasting icing on these raspberry cinnamon rolls.

How to Make These Easy Raspberry Rolls

Making the Dough

Start with the dough for these buns. You'll need to activate the yeast first, by sprinkling this over top the warmed milk along with the granulated sugar. Stir this together and let it sit until frothy.

Place the dry ingredients to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. Then add the foamy activated yeast, immediately followed by the egg and the butter. Begin kneading at a low setting until the dough comes together. Knead for about 15 minutes until the dough is pulling itself off the side of the bowl.

Transfer this cinnamon dough to a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and allow to sit in a warm place at room temperature for between 90 minutes and two hours until doubled in size.

Filling and Shaping Cinnamon Buns

While the dough is proofing, you can make your raspberry filling. Simply smash the raspberries with a fork, add the cornstarch, cinnamon and almond and stir together.

You can make this a day in advance of filling the buns (just keep in the refrigerator until needed).

After the first proof, turn the dough out onto a clean work surface, knock back and roll to a roughly 11" square.

Spread with softened butter to within about an inch of the edges and then spread the raspberry filling over about three quarters of the buttered section of dough starting from the left side, leaving about a quarter without filling on the right hand side. Then roll from the left to right.

The gap in filling on the right is because the raspberry filling will be pressed out while you roll up the dough. Leaving some uncoated will help keep the filling inside the buns.

Heart Shaped Cinnamon Buns

Once rolled, slice about 1.5" off each end to remove unfilled and uneven dough. Then cut into 9 equal pieces with a dough cutter. These will be nine mini cinnamon buns, which can then be fitted into heart shaped pans to create 3 large heart shaped buns.

After placing in the heart-shaped pans, cover with a clean tea towel and allow to proof for a second time for about 90 minutes.

When ready, bake at 350°F for 20 minutes until risen and golden.

Alternative Shaping for these Buns

This recipe is scaled specifically to provide three large heart shaped buns. This is roughly half a batch of conventional sized cinnamon buns.

But, if you don't have heart shaped cake tins, never fear! You can easily make these raspberry cinnamon buns in a variety of alternate baking trays. Using the same recipe, you can use a 7" round cake pan or another similar sized baking dish.

By doubling the recipe, you can make nine larger individual buns following the basic process outlined in my Apple Pie Buns recipe.

Frosting

When it comes to frosting raspberry rolls, you have many options! For this recipe, I recommend my easy spreadable cream cheese and almond icing. Simply stir the ingredients together and spread or pipe over the buns.

Alternatively a simple vanilla glaze of powdered sugar, milk and vanilla would go well. Or, you could amp up the raspberry by using a bit of raspberry juice or puree with icing sugar for a quick and easy raspberry icing.

FAQs

If you like this recipe, try out some other brunch bakes:

• Apple Pie Filled Cinnamon Rolls
• Nectarine Bread
• Mini Brioche Buns
• Cardamom Pistachio Challah Buns
• Easy Zucchini Bread