Chocolate cinnamon rolls with chocolate cream cheese frosting
Many of you have tried my favourite recipe for classic cinnamon rolls (soft, sticky and sweet cinnamon rolls) with a lot of sticky and sweet icing, but how do you feel about chocolate cinnamon rolls? These cinnamon rolls are soft and delicious. They have an intense taste and aroma of chocolate and cinnamon thanks to the addition of dark cocoa powder both in the dough and in the cream cheese frosting. I love them!
Chocolate cinnamon rolls with chocolate cream cheese frosting. Leavened cake with chocolate aftertaste and frosting.
Ingredients
- 100 g butter
- 500 ml milk
- 100 g white sugar
- 6 g active dry yeast
- 640 g all-purpose flour
- 60 g dark cocoa powder
- 0.5 tsp salt
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 tsp ground coffee (optional)
- 150 g brown sugar
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- some butter curls
- 120 g cream cheese
- 4 tbsp milk
- 120 g powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp dark cocoa powder
- Instructions below.
Notes
3 hours waiting time.
Instructions: Chocolate cinnamon rolls with chocolate cream cheese frosting
Warm up your milk together with butter until it is completely melted then set aside to cool down. Add vanilla extract, sugar and active dry yeast. Stir and set aside for 5 minutes until the yeast becomes slightly frothy.
Add flour, cocoa powder, salt and ground coffee (ground coffee is optional but intensifies the taste of chocolate). Stir with a spoon until no traces of flour are visible and set aside for 5 minutes so that the liquids are absorbed by the flour.
Knead the dough by hand or in a mixer with a dough hook for 10 minutes or until the dough becomes smooth and elastic. Transfer it into a bowl, cover with a slightly damp cotton cloth and let it rise in a warm place for 2 hours or until it doubles the volume (important step!). The rising times are approximate, it can take more or less time depending on the temperature of the environment, the freshness of the yeast, the strength of the flour and other factors not related to the recipe. The amall amount of yeast let your cake be moist and fresh for more time.
Deflate the dough and spread it on a floured surface to create a rectangle. Sprinkle the rectangle with brown sugar mixed with cinnamon and add some butter curls.
Roll the rectangle to create a roll of dough. Using the sharp knife, divide it into 15 equal parts. Place cinnamon roll slices over a rectangular baking pan (leave some space between them). Cover the pan with cotton cloth and let rise for another 45 minutes – 1 hour.
The baking
Bake your cinnamon rolls in preheated oven at 180 °C for 25 – 30 minutes. Then take the pan from the oven and put aside to let it cool down.
Prepare the glaze by whisking cream cheese with milk, sifted icing sugar and cocoa powder. Pass the glaze through a fine sieve in case of lumps. Spread still warm chocolate cinnamon rolls with prepared glaze and serve.
lot of love. B.
I love making cinnamon rolls so the prospect of making chocolate rolls proved exciting. The reason I decided to make the rolls was because I had some leftover chocolate peanut butter frosting from a cake I made and wanted to do something with it. I never like to make simple baked goods and wanted to try something new, so chocolate rolls seemed like a obvious choice. To compliment the frosting I changed the filling to peanut butter and brown sugar from another recipe. I figured that the rolls would taste like chocolate cake but with a more doughy quality. This… Read more »
I’m so sorry to hear that 🙁 This cinnamon rolls shoul be exactly as you described them chocolate cake but with a more doughy quality. I use a very little amount of active dry yeast in my leavened sweets. That gives you a dough that will last and be fresh even after 2 days of baking. On the other hand you must wait until the dough doubles in volume. As I say in my recipes the leavening time is indicative. You must watch your dough and be sure it has doubled (I use transparent container) or it will be hard… Read more »