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par baking cinnamon rolls

  • j

hello chowhound(ies),

i am hoping to make holiday gifts for friends and family and want to make this cinnamon roll recipe and was looking for insight how i could par bake them, instead of using the original recipe found here:


i'm going to make a few test batches in the next week or so, so any insight would be helpful.

jes sf

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  1. It's not going to work par-baking them; better to jar up the ingredients for the rolls and print out a recipe and let people make their own. There are plenty of other food gifts that would be better to give like granola, soup mixes, a basket with the components for a meal, etc.

    1. You could just freeze them before the second rising or bake completely and freeze.
      Why do you want to par bake them?

      2 Replies
      1. re: chefj

        so that they can bake them fresh in the mornings for their loved ones. what do you love most about the holidays? the food. (if you're on chowhound). and i would love to make their holiday's easier. i guess i could just bake them fully, leave off the frosting and then have people heat them back up, i just feel like they will get over cooked and less gooey ooey delicious.

        1. re: jessf

          As chefj suggested, give them the rolls frozen, unbaked. You roll them out and put them on the pan (on a disposable aluminum pan would be easiest) and freeze. Your friends can take them out the night before and put them in the refrigerator. In the morning, take them out and leave at room temperature about 30 minutes before baking.

      2. I haven't done this with cinnamon rolls, but since you're going to test them anyway, the general idea is to bake them until set, but not brown. They should have reached their full size, and won't collapse when removed from the oven. You cool them off completely, then wrap them. You continue the baking at the same temperature until they are browned and done.

        2 Replies
        1. re: maxie

          If you were baking a loaf of bread, this might not be so much of a problem but parbaking (or cooking until "set") a wad of rolled up dough half way then pulling it out the oven and putting it back in to finish later is going to cause the center to fall and have raw centers. It will not continue to rise and get airy like cooked dough should when you put it back in.

          To the OP, not sure if you were planning to wrap these up as gifts but obviously if they're frozen, you cant do that. Also, if you're going to bake it in it's entirety, part of the gooeyness of cinnamon rolls is to frost them while fresh from the oven, otherwise by the time the receipients of the rolls decide to frost them, they'll be hard & cold. Good luck

          1. re: Cherylptw

            Agree completely with this post above from Cherylptw

        2. I think that's a fantastic gift idea and has plenty of potential for success- I've gifted homemade bread dough, pot pies par baked with a biscuit crust etc. and they've turned out great. Ive surveyed some friends since reading your post and fresh or frozen cinnamon rolls would be welcomed by all and seem more interesting than your average cookie or quick bread .Bushwickgirl has great tips and clear and consistently trustworthy methods : see this post for some that might
          be helpful.



          1. Here are the directions for King Arthur's "Now or Later Cinnamon Buns." If you look in the tips bar to the right of the recipe, it has instructions for par-baking and freezing the rolls. I think you could use this method with most recipes for cinnamon rolls.


            1 Reply
            1. re: myrandad4

              Actually, the KAF recipe isn't really par-baking. The rolls are fully baked with instructions for optimal room temp storing, or freezing and reheating later. Nothing wrong with the KAF method, but parbaking is something else, like half baked, until the crumb is set, then finished in the oven later. It works better with bread than sweet doughs.

              I agree with other posters, either give friends the panned rolls to bake off, or give them a tray of baked rolls. I wonder how it worked out for the OP.

              I have had store bought parbaked bread, baked until the crumb was set but the color of the crust was still quite pale, and I finished it off in the oven for 15-20 minutes. It was very good, and was done in a commercial bakery under certain baking conditions. The OP may or may not have been able to imitate that at home.