As I was shopping I came across this box mix with cinnamon rolls pictured on it and got very excited. I’d never seen a cinnamon roll box mix, only the premade mixes in the refrigerator section. I immediately took it home excited for an easy cinnamon roll.
This box is false advertising and for that fact alone I do not recommend purchasing this mix. Despite showing cinnamon rolls on the box, this is a box mix to make dinner rolls. It comes with a package of flour and a package of yeast. That is all. In small print they mention you can also use this mix to make cinnamon rolls or pizza crust. However they advertised with a photo of a cinnamon roll. I didn’t read the box until I got home and was very disappointed. Obviously I should have read it more at the store but let’s be honest, a lot of people buy things based off the look of the packaging and this was false advertising.
I have included a picture for you to see the long list of ingredients you actually need to make these rolls. You are basically making this from scratch with a recipe written on a box. The only thing they provided was yeast considering I had to use my own flour for a separate step in this mix. I even had to go back to the store to pickup cream cheese and half and half, ingredients I do not keep on hand. I was so annoyed by this it took me a few weeks to make this after purchasing this mix.
Making these rolls was straight forward but as tedious as any homemade pastry. I wanted quick with few steps and instant gratification, why else would I buy a box mix? Anyways. It starts with mixing the dough using the packaged ingredients then adding in sugar, water, butter, and an egg. After that you knead it for 5 minutes and let it rest for another 5 minutes. This dough didn’t have a notable taste. It was exactly what you would expect, sweet and yeasty.
While the dough rests you move on and start making the cinnamon filling with cinnamon, brown sugar, butter, and flour. This mixture was tasty but with cinnamon sugar and butter where can you go wrong? I do think it could have used some vanilla extract to elevate the flavor but hidden in the pastry and under icing, it may not be a noticeable difference in the finished product. The next step is for you to roll out the dough that has rested and make it into a rectangle then cover it with your cinnamon filling. Once it is the right size and covered in cinnamon, you roll it up into a log and cut it into 12 even pieces.
From there you put the 12 pieces into the pan and let them rise for 30 minutes, the rolls are supposed to double in size. After resting, you baste the dough in half and half and put it in the oven to bake. For once I felt that the bake time was correct on the box. Many mixes have incorrect times but this also shouldn’t qualify as a mix, it’s homemade just following the boxes recipe. I pulled the rolls out of the oven at 22 minutes and once they are out you baste them one more time in more half and half. I have never seen half and half used for basting and thought this was an interesting choice but the hot rolls soaked it up right away.
While they baked I made the frosting. It consisted of cream cheese, butter, vanilla, powdered sugar, and half and half. I didn’t have the patience to let the rolls cool completely so once they had cooled slightly I covered them in the icing and luckily it didn’t melt, and instead it was evenly distributed. Personally, I would have liked more icing. It covered the tops of every roll but I feel that icing is the best part. If I made this again I would double the icing recipe and have some set aside for dipping.
This recipe made a fantastic cinnamon roll. I really enjoyed them warm and when they were cool the next day they were almost as good. It was a good flavor, a nice ratio of filling to pastry, and a good amount of icing. The flavors all worked together and none of them overpowered the others. Overall, an enjoyable cinnamon roll. However this was an awful box mix. This is not a mix for cinnamon rolls. It’s a mix for dinner rolls with a picture of a cinnamon roll. This mix was $2.44 at Walmart when I picked it up. I could have bought a packet of yeast for a lot less and been happier.
I looked on Pillsbury’s website to see if this recipe was listed and I could not find it. They had many cinnamon roll recipes and variations of the normal pastry and all of them consisted of using their refrigerated pre-made cinnamon rolls. It seems to me that Pillsbury understands most people want to take the easy way out and yet created this box mix with false advertising to trick the less observant folks like myself into purchasing their product. I don’t recommend this box mix. Either find a homemade recipe or pick up the refrigerated and canned pre-made rolls and save yourself the frustration this box causes.
Here are the links to products used today:
Rubber Spatulas – https://amzn.to/3JWDtAA
Oven Mitts – https://amzn.to/3JYq5Mg
Vanilla Bean Paste – https://amzn.to/3QGEsZB
9x 13 glass pan https://amzn.to/3ygJB3Y
*These are affiliate links meaning if you click on the link and buy the product, I will earn a small commission, but you will not be charged a penny more.
2 responses to “Testing Pillsbury’s Hot Roll mix made into Cinnamon Rolls”
The box is literally labelled Hot Roll and has nothing but a huge cinammon roll on the front, not a dinner roll. That seems.like the text book definition of false advertising to me.
How would you say this recipe compares in taste to the pre-made rolls you can buy in the refrigerated section?
I would have to say these are better than the premade rolls, it’s like due to the fact that they don’t have the preservatives in them to keep them shelf stable for a period of time. But I have never been mad at the quality of a pre-made cinnamon roll.