Ingredients
- 2 cups Warm Water
- 2 packets Yeast
- 2 Eggs
- 2 cups Buttermilk
- 2/3 cup Sugar
- 9 cups Flour
- 2 tsp Salt
- 1 can Pumpkin
- 3 cups Brown Sugar
- 4 Tbls Cinnamon
- 1 tsp Nutmeg
- 1 tsp Ginger
- 1 stick Butter
- 8 oz Cream Cheese
- 3 cups Powdered Sugar
- 1 tbsp Milk
Instructions
Rolls
- Grease a 13×9 pan or 3 Pie Plates. Set aside.
- Combine yeast and water and mix to combine. Set aside.
- Whisk eggs in mixer. With hook attachment add buttermilk, sugar, yeast water, and 7 cups of the flour until combined. Add salt and remainder of flour.
- Mix until combined.
- Turn dough onto a floured surface. Knead dough by hand adding flour as needed until the dough is no longer sticky.
- Divide dough in half. Roll out into a 1/2″ think rectangle.
- Take half the can of pumpkin and spread with spatula over your rectangle. Crumble 1-12 cups of brown sugar over the pumpkin.
- Combine your spices and sprinkle half over the brown sugar.
- Roll dough lengthwise. Slice the long roll into 8 pieces. Add rolls to your pan.
- Repeat steps with your remaining dough.
- Loosely cover rolls and place in the refrigerator overnight.
- Uncover in the morning and let them come to room temperature along with the cream cheese. Preheat the oven to 425.
- Cube a stick of butter and dot the rolls.
- Bake at 425 for 40 min or until the inside dough is cooked and the tops of the rolls are a golden brown.
Frosting
- Beat cream cheese until fluffy. Combine powdered sugar and milk.
- Add frosting over warm rolls.
There’s something about autumn that makes the kitchen feel like the heart of the home. Bruce and I decided to bring that spirit to our breakfast networking event with a heaping batch of pumpkin cinnamon rolls—soft, spiced, and just right for the season.
The recipe I started with needed a little tweaking. Perhaps my flour is extra thirsty, but I found myself adding nearly two more cups before the dough reached that perfect pillowy texture. I also couldn’t resist sprinkling in a bit more brown sugar—it felt only right to let the pumpkin and spice have a sweeter companion.
A word of warning: if you’re tempted to double this recipe (as I did, in my enthusiasm), prepare yourself for a cinnamon roll avalanche. We had trays upon trays—enough to share with parents, friends, and still a mountain left over. Unless you have an extra-large bowl and an army to feed, I recommend sticking to a single batch!
As for the photos, forgive their humble nature. Between late-night mixing and dawn baking, I only had time to capture a few iPhone snapshots. But perhaps that’s fitting—these rolls aren’t about perfection, they’re about the joy of baking, sharing, and savoring the harvest season.
