Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Rolls are the perfect cold day treat made with real pumpkin and fragrant spice! They’re pillowy soft and sticky and topped with a very simple drizzled icing!

Chilly autumn breakfasts don’t come better than with these pumpkin spice cinnamon rolls.  I’m pretty much everything pumpkin spice right now.  Give me the smells, sights, sounds, colours and of course flavours of autumn and I’m at my absolutely most content.  Top it all with a generous drizzle of sticky sweet icing and a big cup of something hot for complete autumnal indulgence!

I’ve also recently discovered ASMR on YouTube.  Did you all know about this?  I’m not talking about the slightly creepy whispering into a microphone while popping bubble wrap, I mean the cosy coffee shop videos with gentle jazz, crackling fires and snow outside.  There are SO many.  Everything from a bubbling apothecary to a rainy Victorian London street to a quiet library with gently turned book pages and rain on the windows.

Headphones in, the sound of a rainy day, crackling fire and a couple of these pumpkin spice cinnamon buns.  Sticky, delicious, heavenly.  If pumpkin spice is truly your thing, pair it with this Pumpkin Spice Latte topped with vegan whipped cream.  OHHHH MY.

And much like the PSL, these sticky buns also have real pumpkin in them, giving them that wonderful autumny orange glow!  The other magical ingredient is of course Pumpkin Spice flavouring from Foodie Flavours.  Like all their flavourings and essences they just make life that little bit easier – great flavour without a tonne of ingredients and faff.  And because they’re such an intense flavour, only a few drops are needed for a recipe.

I was actually standing there sniffing this particular bottle and thought I’d actually wear this as a fragrance!  It smells sweet, spicy and a little bit citrusy.  Wonder if they’ve ever considered making a line of vegan shower gels, shampoos etc?!

Please don’t be intimidated by making your own bread dough.  It really is a very simple process.

There are only a couple of important steps for foolproof perfect bread every time:

• The temperature of the liquid – it need to be blood temperature, meaning that when you put your finger in the liquid you can’t really feel if it’s hot or cold.  If it’s too cold it will take the yeast longer to activate.  Too hot and you run the risk of killing the yeast.  The easy way to tell if your yeast is ok is in the very first step of warming the liquid with the sugar then whisking in the yeast until it foams.  It only takes around 5 minutes but if nothing happens you’ll know something is wrong with the yeast.
• The other thing is the kneading.  Because you want to develop the gluten in the flour you need to stretch and break the gluten strands.  This gives the final cooked bread its chewy texture and light crumb.  I work on the theory that putting my back into the kneading for a good 5-10 minutes means I’ve “worked out” enough to deserve an extra pumpkin spice cinnamon roll!

How to make perfectly soft pumpkin spice cinnamon buns:

Start by warming the milk, pumpkin puree and sugar.  As just mentioned you want it blood temperature.  I have a complete guide here to making bread from scratch if you want to understand a bit of the science behind it.

Whisk in the yeast.  Cover and leave to froth for 5-10 minutes.

Weigh out the flour, salt and butter.  Then using your fingertips, rub the butter into the flour until you have no lumps remaining.

Add the pumpkin spice flavouring to the milk.  Then add the wet to the dry.  Stir everything together until it starts to form a dough.  Don’t be tempted at this point to add more liquid or more flour.  Tip out onto your work surface and start kneading the dough, stretching it out and folding it back on itself.  If it’s too wet after a few kneads add a dusting of flour.  If it’s too dry wet your hands and continue to knead the dough.  The process for this pumpkin spiced bread is very similar to our Pizza Tear and Share Bread and we have a video tutorial that shows you the kneading process.

Knead for at least 5 minutes.  Or preferably 10.   The dough needs to be soft, stretchy and elastic.  Once that’s done, pop it into a lightly oiled bowl, cover and leave somewhere warm to prove until it’s doubled in size. This can take anywhere from 30 minutes to over an hour.

Tip the dough out onto a lightly floured surface.  Then roll out to a large rectangle roughly 30 x 49 cm (12 x 19 inches).  Keep the dough moving on the work surface so that it doesn’t stick.

Brush with melted butter then sprinkle over the cinnamon sugar.  I’ve used light brown sugar for this, as it caramelises beautifully giving such a rich, sticky filling in the finished bread!

Roll up like a giant Swiss roll.  Start at the long edge and roll away from you, keeping the rolls quite tight.

Cut the sausage into 12 equal pieces.  You can measure or do this by eye.  I cut the whole sausage in half, then each half in half, then each quarter into 3.

Lay the cut sides up in a lined tin, tray or dish.  You want a reasonably large enough dish to accommodate the 12 swirls with some room around each one to give them space to grow during their second prove.

Once again leave somewhere warm to prove until doubled in size.  Then bake in a preheated oven until golden, crisp and sticky.

Leave to cool for 10-15 minutes before drizzling over the icing.  If you do this as soon as it comes out of the oven it will just melt and run off too much.

Try not to eat the whole thing at once because the heckin’ smell whilst it’s cooking.

These are probably my favourite autumn/winter weekend thing to bake.  Your house is filled with the most amazing aroma AND you get sticky, sweet cinnamon buns to eat.  If this isn’t enjoying the fruits of your labour I dunno what is!

Storing your leftover cinnamon buns:

There’s no doubt they’re at their absolute best about half an hour out of the oven – the perfect balance between warm and fresh and not burn your mouth hot.  Trust me, I’ve tested the science.  But IF there’s any left, keep in a tightly lidded container.  I’ve also frozen these fairly successfully.  I freeze without the icing then defrost thoroughly before a gentle warm in the microwave and a drizzle of icing

Looking for even more pumpkin spice recipes?  Try these:

Pumpkin Spice Pull Apart Bread

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread

Pumpkin Pancakes

Pumpkin Spice Halloween Cookies (can also be made un-Halloweeny!)

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