Chai Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls: the secret trick that makes these awesome
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Chai pumpkin cinnamon rolls are pumpkin cinnamon rolls made with butter infused with chai tea, filled with chai spice brown sugar butter, then topped with zingy cream cheese frosting sprinkled with maple candied pecans.
There’s a lot going on in these rolls, but they’re just a hair more complicated to make than regular overnight cinnamon rolls. You’ll love the soft, easy to roll dough and the spreadable paste filling. And people, they’re ORANGE from the pumpkin in the dough. How can you hate that?!
Grab a can of pumpkin and let’s make these happy little pumpkin rolls.
Chai Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
Why these pumpkin rolls are a Fall hug
- Chai-infused butter: Secret trick #1! If you’ve never infused butter with tea, this is a fun technique to boost the flavor of your bakes in a subtle way. I love doing the same thing with earl grey.
- Bright orange dough: The pumpkin adds not just warm cozy flavor but this happy orange color to the dough. Natural colors in doughs are always striking, and I can’t think of a better color for the season.
- Candied pecans: You can skip adding these, but why? They have an extra boost of chai spices, and they’re just so darn good if my pecan sandies haven’t convinced you of this fact yet.
- Cozy spices: these rolls have layers on layers of spice between the dough, the filling, and the topping. All that translates to unforgettable flavor.
Ingredients for chai pumpkin cinnamon rolls
Dough
- Water
- Yeast
- Granulated sugar
- Canned pumpkin
- Butter
- Chai tea bag
- Salt
- Eggs
- Vanilla sugar
- All-purpose flour
Filling
- Butter, at room temperature (113 g)
- Dark brown sugar
- Granulated sugar
- chai spice blend (cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice works here too).
Topping
- Cream cheese
- Powdered sugar
- Butter
- Whiskey or rum (substitute 1 tsp vanilla paste)
- Cinnamon for sprinkling
- Maple candied pecans
Baker’s secrets to make the best pumpkin cinnamon rolls
- Filling paste: These rolls use a filling paste made from room temperature butter, sugar, and the chai spice blend. Because it’s a paste, it’s easy to spread across the dough edge to edge, making sure you get a nice even layer of filling for prettier rolls and ones that are as loaded with filling as possible.
- Squeeze the tea bag: Squeeze all the last bits of butter out of the tea bag after it has sat in the melted butter. This will pull out not just all the butter, but the most flavor from the tea.
- Switch up the spices: feel free to make regular cinnamon rolls or pumpkin spice cinnamon rolls with this same pumpkin dough. Simply swap out cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice for the chai spice blend in the recipe.
Other cinnamon roll variations to try
Print
Chai Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
- Total Time: 50 minutes + 8 hours, 30 minutes of dough resting time
- Yield: 15 rolls
Description
Pumpkin cinnamon rolls made with butter infused with chai tea, filled with chai spice brown sugar butter filling, then topped with zingy cream cheese frosting sprinkled with maple candied pecans.
Ingredients
Scale
Dough
- 1/4 cup warm water (59 mL)
- 2 tsp instant yeast
- 3 Tablespoons granulated sugar (37 g)
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla sugar (optional, see note)
- 3/4 cup canned pumpkin
- 4 Tablespoons butter (57 g)
- 1 chai tea bag
- 3/4 tsp salt
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1 teaspoon vanilla paste
- 3 cups all-purpose flour (390 g)
Filling
- 1 stick butter, at room temperature (113 g)
- 1 /2 cup dark brown sugar (106 g)
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar (100 g) or light brown sugar (106 g)
- 2 teaspoons chai spice, ground cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice
Icing
- 2 oz cream cheese, softened (56 g)
- 1/2 cup powdered sugar (60 g)
- 2 Tablespoons butter (28 g)
- 1 Tablespoon whiskey or rum (substitute 1 tsp vanilla paste)
- Cinnamon for sprinkling
- 1/2 cup Maple Candied pecans (optional, but awesome), chopped
Instructions
Make the dough:
- Sprinkle the yeast on the warm water in a small bowl with a pinch of the sugar. Set aside for about 5 minutes until the yeast is foamy.
- Melt the butter in a small pan, placing the tea bag in the butter as it melts. Turn down the heat to low once the butter is melted completely, then simmer the butter and tea for about 5 minutes to infuse the butter with chai flavor.
- Remove the tea bag, squeezing out as much butter as you can.
- Crack the eggs and use a fork to whip them into the butter, then add in the pumpkin, sugar, vanilla sugar and salt. Stir to combine.
- Put the flour into a large bowl or your stand mixer bowl. Make a well in the center with your hands, then pour in the milk mixture then the yeast mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon or the dough hook to make a rough dough.
- After that, with a dough hook on your stand mixer, beat the dough for about 7 minutes on low speed (2 on a Kitchen Aid) until you get an elastic sticky dough that forms into a ball around the hook.
- Cover the dough with plastic wrap and set in the fridge to rise overnight or 4 hours minimum.
Make the rolls:
- Smoosh the butter together with the the sugars and chai spice blend together in a small bowl to make a smooth paste.
- Sprinkle some flour on a work surface, then scrape out the cold dough on top of the flour. Sprinkle flour over the top of the dough.
- Quickly roll the dough into a rectangle about 12″X16″.
- Spray a 9×13 pan with cooking spray or grease it with a little butter.
- Use an offset spatula to spread the sugar paste filling in a thin layer covering all of the dough.
- Roll up the dough over itself along the long edge into a tight log.
- Eyeball or use a measuring tape to mark the dough for cutting the rolls into 15 pieces. Cut with a serrated knife.
- Set the cut rolls in the prepared pan.
- Cover the rolls with a clean tea towel and let them rise at room temperature for 45 minutes.
- Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 350F (180 C).
- Bake the rolls for 20-25 minutes until golden brown and set.
- Set the pan on a wire rack to cool while you make the icing.
Make the icing:
- Beat all the ingredients together into a smooth thick icing.
- Spread the rolls with a generous amount of icing with a spoon, then sprinkle with cinnamon and a sprinkling of the candied pecans.
- Rolls are best eaten the same day that they’re made, but you can freeze them without the icing in an airtight bag for up to 1 month. To reheat, warm them in a pan in a 300F degree oven for 15 minutes. From there you can ice them.
Notes
1. Skip the vanilla sugar?: If you don’t have vanilla sugar on hand for the dough, feel free to skip it by using 1/4 cup granulated sugar and 1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla paste instead. You’ll still get plenty of vanilla flavor.
- Prep Time: 25
- Cook Time: 25
- Category: Morning breads
- Method: Oven
- Cuisine: American
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 roll
- Calories: 398
- Sugar: 30
- Sodium: 322
- Fat: 14
- Saturated Fat: 8
- Unsaturated Fat: 0
- Trans Fat: 0
- Carbohydrates: 63
- Fiber: 3
- Protein: 6
- Cholesterol: 57
