A friend who likes my cinnamon rolls asked me if I would make them for a wedding brunch — but they would need to be prepped several days in advance and either baked or reheated the morning of. Although I’ve made dinner roll dough and frozen ahead and figured it would be the same concept, I was a bit nervous about messing up their brunch rolls….. since I’ve only ever made cinnamon rolls “fresh.” So I did some research and narrowed it down to two options and of course had to experiment! Here ya go……
The Experiment
On Friday, I made a single batch of my 60-Minute Dinner Roll dough (because it’s quick and light) — I added a bit extra sweetener and an egg to the dough, but all else stayed the same, including the yeast. (You can find the recipe in my cookbook, Everyday Cooking, or in my youTube video, Donuts & Dinner Rolls. Or you can use my regular sandwich bread recipe in the menu bar at the top of this page.) I rolled out the dough into a rectangle and topped with honey and cinnamon, as usual. (I would normally have added soaked raisins, but this was an experiment for process, not taste, so I just added nuts to half as I rolled them.)
I cut the two ends off to give me more equally shaped portions for comparison (baked those right up front and we ate those that same day!).
So I cut the rest into 16 pieces by cutting in half, then halving those halves, etc.
Eight rounds were randomly placed into one Wilton cake pan and the other eight rounds were placed in the matching Wilton cake pan. Pan #1 was wrapped in saran and foil as soon as shaping was completed, then popped into the deep freezer on Friday (labeled Frozen).
Pan #2 was allowed to rise, then baked as usual but only for the first 10 min, till puffed but still pale (labeled Parbaked). Once the pan cooled, that pan was wrapped just like the other and popped into the deep freezer.
On Saturday night, both pans moved from the freezer to the fridge to thaw overnight, still foil-wrapped.
Sunday Morning: The Test
Pan #1 (frozen shaped) came out of the fridge at 8:45 to thaw and rise for 90 minutes.
At that point, I took the Parbaked pan out of the fridge to warm up slightly on the counter as I preheated the oven to 350. Both pans went into the oven at the same time. I baked the Parbaked pan only till they began to brown, which took about 15 minutes. The (thawed and risen) Frozen pan continued to bake to 200 degrees internal temperature, which took a total of about 20 minutes.
After icing the rolls while they were warm, I called the taste testers. Three (adult) testers all agreed that the taste was equal (as one would expect) but that the frozen/shaped rolls that rose just prior to today’s baking were slightly lighter. Note that it is possible that I simply needed to allow the parbaked pan to rise higher before baking on Friday — that’s a test for another day.
The Takeaway
The takeaway for me was that it would not hurt the quality or rising power to freeze the shaped rolls before rising/baking. And if one didn’t taste them both at once, there would be no perceptible difference. So it’s really a matter of convenience. Frozen still calls for taking something out to rise almost 2 hours prior to baking — but it does at least put the effort and mess on an earlier day. Parbaked would be a great option in a time crunch or to give away as “brown and serve.”
Now to give away 16 cinnamon rolls……
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