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Without a doubt this is the Best Cinnamon Roll Recipe you’ll ever eat. These are the Famous Trilogy Cinnamon Rolls, and you need this recipe.
Trilogy Cinnamon Rolls are a homemade cinnamon roll recipe with a pillowy soft and sweet yeasted dough filled with sugar and cinnamon and topped with the most delicious icing ever. Then they’re sprinkled with macadamia nuts!
Gooey Cinnamon Rolls
Right now is about when you are thinking to yourself, what the heck is a Trilogy Cinnamon Roll, am I right? Well, I’m about to tell you: they’re the BEST cinnamon rolls you’ll ever eat. And the recipe makes TWO PANS!
If you’ve ever been to Maui, you might be familiar with the Trilogy Sailing Excursions. They do catamaran snorkeling and sunset cruises out of Lahaina and they feed you cinnamon rolls on the trip. We’ve been sailing with Trilogy for over 20 years – and we hope to go back some day once Maui has recovered.
The cinnamon roll dough is soft and fluffy and they’re filled with the best cinnamon sugar filling – and topped with a unique frosting that makes the rolls, along with the sprinkling of macadamia nuts. These are EPIC!
Ingredients Needed
- Active Dry Yeast: This recipe is designed for active dry yeast – NOT instant!
- Pure Cane Sugar: You may substitute granulated sugar or brown sugar.
- Vegetable Oil: Where my normal cinnamon rolls use butter in the dough, these use oil, making them super soft.
- All Purpose Flour: You can also substitute bread flour.
- Macadamia Nuts: The best Hawaiian touch shop them small.
- Lemon Extract and Almond Extract: These go in the frosting. Sounds weird – but it works! My normal cinnamon rolls are frosted with cream cheese frosting, but these just use softened butter and you don’t miss the cream cheese icing at all.
How to make Fluffy Cinnamon Rolls
- You’ll want your water to be warm to start – between 100-110°F. Use an instant read thermometer for best results. Place the warm water in the bowl of an electric stand mixer and add yeast. Allow the yeast to activate – it will bubble and foam.
- Whisk eggs and oil together. Add the egg mixture to the yeast mixture along with 1 cup of the flour. Start the mixer and then slowly add rest of flour, stirring in gradually. Run the mixer with the dough hook until the dough is elastic. Turn it out onto a floured board and knead it a few times until it is no longer sticky.
- Place the dough into a bowl that’s been sprayed with nonstick cooking spray. Let the dough rise until doubled.
- Spray two 9×13-inch baking pans with nonstick cooking spray.
- Divide the dough in half and roll each into a rectangle. Top with melted butter and sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon. Slice rolls and place 12 in each baking pan, then let sit for a second rise.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake sweet rolls approximately 20-25 minutes.
- Make the icing: beat butter and confectioners’ sugar until crumbly, the add extracts, salt, and heavy whipping cream and mix until smooth.
- Sprinkle the warm rolls with chopped macadamia nuts and spread with icing.
Expert Tips
- To help them rise faster, place them on the stove top or near the oven while it’s preheating. You can also set the bowl and/or pans over a heating pad set to low.
- Use unflavored dental floss to make the slicing easier., or use a serrated sharp knife.
- Cinnamon buns are done baking when they are a beautiful light golden brown. The cooking time is approximately 20-25 minutes.
- Serve warm or room temperature. Store tightly covered for up to 4 days.
- Freeze baked or unbaked rolls for up to 3 months – thaw before baking.
FAQs
Can you freeze these cinnamon rolls?
You can! Freeze in an airtight container for up to 3 months!
How do you store them?
You can store at room temperature or in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
Famous Trilogy Cinnamon Rolls Recipe
This is my favorite soft and fluffy cinnamon roll – they're the official recipe from Trilogy Sailing Excursions.
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 25 minutes
Resting Time 2 hours
Total Time 2 hours 55 minutes
Ingredients
Dough:
- 1 ½ cups (355ml) warm water
- 2 tablespoons active dry yeast
- ½ cup (100g) pure cane sugar (may substitute granulated sugar)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 large eggs
- ¾ cup (177ml) vegetable oil
- 5 cups (620g) all-purpose flour
Filling:
- 6 tablespoons (85g) unsalted butter , melted
- ⅔ cup (167g) pure cane sugar or brown sugar
- 2-4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Icing:
- ½ cup finely chopped Macadamia nuts
- 6 tablespoons (85g) unsalted butter , softened
- 2 cups (226g) powdered sugar
- ¼ tsp lemon extract
- ¼ tsp almond extract
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 3 tablespoons (45ml) heavy whipping cream
Instructions
- Place warm water (about 100-110°F) into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. (The easiest way to test the water is using an instant read thermometer, but if you don’t have one, think hot bathwater.) Sprinkle the yeast into the water, then add the salt and sugar. Stir with a wooden spoon. Let rest until it bubbles, about 5 minutes.
- In another bowl or large measuring cup, whisk eggs and oil together. Add the egg mixture to the yeast mixture along with 1 cup of the flour. Start the mixer and then slowly add rest of flour, stirring in gradually. Run the mixture for about 5-10 minutes or until the dough is elastic. The dough will be slightly sticky and very soft. Turn it out onto a floured board and knead it a few times until it is no longer sticky.
- Place the dough into a bowl that’s been sprayed with nonstick cooking spray. Let rest until doubled.
- Spray two 9×13” pans with nonstick cooking spray.
- Punch down the dough and divide it in half. Roll each half out to a rectangle that is about 12×15”. To fill, spread each rectangle with melted butter, sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar to taste. Roll up lengthwise. Make roll as tight as possible. Cut into one-inch pieces. Place in greased pan so that rolls just touch each other.
- At this point you have two options: 1. Let rise until doubled (about 20-30 minutes), then bake as directed below or 2. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and chill overnight. Let the rolls come to room temperature before baking.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Bake approximately 20-25 minutes.
- Make the icing: beat butter and powdered sugar until crumbly, the add extracts, salt, and heavy whipping cream and mix until smooth. The frosting should be thin enough to easily spread but not liquidy.
- Sprinkle the warm rolls with chopped macadamia nuts and spread with icing. Serve warm or room temperature. Store tightly covered for up to 4 days.
Recipe Video
Recipe Nutrition
Serving: 1roll | Calories: 300kcal | Carbohydrates: 36g | Protein: 4g | Fat: 16g | Saturated Fat: 6g | Polyunsaturated Fat: 4g | Monounsaturated Fat: 5g | Trans Fat: 0.3g | Cholesterol: 33mg | Sodium: 129mg | Potassium: 56mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 16g | Vitamin A: 248IU | Vitamin C: 1mg | Calcium: 14mg | Iron: 1mg
Nutritional information not guaranteed to be accurate
How on earth anyone could pass up one of these babies is insane!!! Almond and lemon in the frosting sound very interesting! Next time I make cinnamon rolls I must try this version!! So, glad you had a good time on your trip! 🙂
Thanks Malinda!!
The almond and lemon is definitely different! My bf has been searching for a cinnamon roll recipe to make his dad for fathers day and I just so happen to come across this. Sounds like we found the winner, thank you! Jealous you just came back from Maui.. I have never been to Hawaii but it is on my list for next year!
Thanks Mia! I hope you enjoy!
Cinnamon Roles are probably my favorite breakfast food of all time. I’d never thought to add almond extract to the icing even though that, too, rates pretty high in my book. Looking forward to giving these a try (preferably in Hawaii, but more likely in my kitchen, far, far away from the ocean…) 🙂
Ha, thank you!!
How do you eat things like this and not get fat or get diabetes? I think I just got both by reading this yummy recipe. Still searching for the New York style bagel bakery in Tucson back in the 80’s – they were the worlds very best cinnamon rolls with a filling that was created in a food processor – mostly cinnamon, but also seemed to have finely minced dates, walnuts, grated orange peel, and maybe mace, vanilla bean, dark cocoa powder ? I would look at it and wonder what all was in there that tasted so heavenly but was just too young and distracted by my adorable boyfriend at that time in my young life to go ask the baker for the recipe! The rolls were made very large in width – meant to be shared, and they were not too yeasty, not really high and puffy but as wide as a smaller paper plate, always served warm with melted clarified butter on top of the icing which was only drizzled on top, not spread, about half the amount of icing usually spread thickly on most cinnamon roll recipes making that way too sweet. These were perfect, placed the accent on perfect texture and exotically fragrant inner cinnamon filling that was not pasty or too light – just perfect in all ways. Is there an angel out there reading this now that might know what I am talking about? If you ever had them, you will never forget them.
That filling sounds awesome! I’ll need to search and see if I can find something similar online.
People actually passed on cinnamon rolls??? What the what? Who in the world passes on a fluffy roll? Not me, that’s for sure. I guess that’s why my swimsuit will never look as good as I want it too. But that’s ok because cinnamon rolls make me happier than swimsuits anyway! Love that flavor combo in the icing!!!
Right? I’m happier a little fluffier if it means I can eat cinnamon rolls!
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