I'm afraid that I haven't been very diligent with my breakfast-making lately. I feel that breakfast is the trickiest meal in the summertime. I don't want the hot comfort foods of winter and fall (steaming scrambled eggs, porridge of all sorts). But my cold breakfasts of yogurt and fruit can get old in their endless repetition. And yet — baking? In this heat?
The key to breakfast baking in the summer is to keep it as brief as possible, and that's where this recipe comes in. There have been a lot of Clif bars and leftovers eaten as breakfast in my household lately, so when these appeared my husband pounced, not believing his luck. Sweet, rich cinnamon buns — summer-style!
These are an indulgent brunch dish of quick biscuits loaded with cinnamon chips, baked until flaky and streaked with gobs of melted cinnamon. The biscuit part isn't really sweet at all, but it is fluffy and tender. The sweetness comes from the melted lines of cinnamon sugar, and the creamy glaze on top. I rarely if ever have the patience and forethought to make real cinnamon rolls, with their yeast dough and hours of mixing, rising, kneading. These are far, far quicker — they're practically an impulse bake.
These biscuits can be whipped up in 10 minutes or less, with a handful of ingredients, and they only stay in the oven for 16 minutes, tops. They have that gooey, pull-apart quality of cinnamon rolls, but without all the hassle of yeast.
So yes, breakfast baking in the summer — you can get in and out with a plateful of gooey cinnamon biscuits before your kitchen truly heats up.
makes 4 extra-large biscuits
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon dark brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups heavy cream*, divided
1/2 cup cinnamon chips
3/4 cup confectioner's sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
* Note: If you want to use anything other than heavy cream in this recipe, please know that you will not get optimal results. All the fat in this recipe comes from the cream (instead of butter) so if you use low-fat milk or any other kind of dairy, the whole recipe would need to be tweaked. If you do not want to use cream, I would recommend making another biscuit recipe that you are familiar with and just adding cinnamon chips as directed below.
Heat the oven to 425°F. Lightly grease an 8 x 8-inch baking pan, or line it with one sheet of parchment paper, hanging over the sides.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt, breaking up any large clumps in the brown sugar. Pour in 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 cups of the cream — just enough to make a thick, fairly wet and sticky dough — and mix quickly, just until combined. Dump the dough out on a floured countertop and pat into a long, thick rectangle. The dough will be firm, yet wet and sticky.
Slice the rectangle into 8 equally-sized squares. Lay half the squares in the prepared baking pan. Sprinkle about a tablespoon and a half of cinnamon chips over each square. Cover the cinnamon chips with a second square of biscuit dough and lightly press the edges to seal. Repeat with each biscuit. Top the biscuits with the remaining cinnamon chips.
Bake for 14 to 16 minutes, or until the biscuits are barely golden on the outside and just cooked through. Remove from the oven and use a knife to spread and smear the now hot cinnamon chips on top of the biscuits.
Whisk together the remaining 1/2 cup cream, confectioner's sugar, and vanilla. Lightly drizzle the biscuits with this glaze (you may not want to use all of the glaze). Serve and eat while hot.
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Maybe I'm being lazy... but could this be done with store-bought canned biscuits? I love to bake as much as the next girl, but sometimes a shortcut makes me happy.
I have all of the ingredients except the cinnamon chips. Could you use ground cinnamon? And if so, how much would you use? Thanks! Can't wait to make these! I am currently 8 months pregnant and have been trying to find something new and yummy and quick for breakfast.
My boyfriend's two favorites are Cinnamon Rolls and Biscuits. I can't wait to make these for him!
Thanks for the recipe!
Chef Laura at Home
www.facebook.com/cheflauraathome
http://laurajanelli.posterous.com
@suz: I'm with you! Probably not as decadent as the cream biscuits, but I'm willing to bet they'd be incredibly yummy, too. Go for it!
I would love to make these :) but sugar for me just causes a headache and tired sick feeling afterward but I love cinnamon. What would you suggest as a sugar substitute?
No luck finding the cinnamon chips...any alternate suggestion?
Can I replace the cream with anything non-dairy?
Ugh, this makes me angry I'm not home making these right now! ;-) But seriously, I've been trying to find a good homemade alternative (or rather, replacement) for the Cinnamon Biscuits at Bojangles since they no longer make them at all the ones I go to in NC (in the Triangle and Piedmont Triad). Looking pretty scrumptious.
@jdianew you can find them through King Arthur's baking catalogue. But I have also seen Hershey's cinnamon chips available in the baking aisle at my local grocery store - they are quite widely available.
Any chance these would work with white whole wheat flour? They look amazing but I'd love to boost their nutritional value by using whole wheat flour. Not if it would mess them up though. What do you think?
Really looking forward to trying this recipe--I'm a total sucker for all things gooey ^_^
Side note, for those like me living in a place where cinnamon chips are not available, there is a handy recipe for them here:
http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Cinnamon-Chip-Raisin-Scones
This would be a great first day of school breakfast tradition.
Could you put everything together the night before and bake in the morning?
Is there an easy way to print these recipes?
I started my diet today! This is not fair.
I share your angst about summer breakfasts.
My new breakfast love, which changes up the yogurt/fruit and keeps it low fat, is the raspberry gratin from smitten kitchen.
My modification is to use nonfat yogurt and lots of raspberries. You can see my review here.
@Mountaineer72 just printing straight from your browser will strip out code/sidebars/ads and just leave the text and photos. Anything other than that and we just recommend copying/pasting the text into a text file. Better recipe printing will come (hopefully soon!) in our upcoming redesign.
@VulcanGirl no, biscuit dough should be baked immediately. If you want to make something ahead, traditional yeast rolls are better. But these biscuits are so quick - they're designed to be put together very fast in the mornings.
@AmiAustin sure, I think you could substitute white whole wheat flour. I think the biscuits won't be quite as light, but definitely worth a try.
I'm dying a little right now. I mean, oh my goodness...
These look great! And I couldn't agree more about traditional cinnamon rolls. I love them, but they require more time and energy than I like to give to most breakfasts, even on the weekends. Not to mention that most recipes make a big ol' batch. With only 2 of us, this recipe is much more manageable.
ps - what is "light cream"? I've only seen heavy cream or whipping cream at most American grocery stores.
Any suggestions for substitution for cinnamon chips?
Where I live, I need to go to a specialty store (expat/import) to get regular chocolate chips. I haven't yet seen cinnamon chips here.
OK, novice baker here. I just made this recipe minus the cinnamon chips (didn't have any) and with 2% milk (didn't have light cream - table cream, 18-30% fat). The dough is VERY wet so I just turned it into the baking pan lined with parchment. It cooked beautifully in 16 minutes and can be cut into dense biscuits. Definitely needs more sugar (I didn't make the glaze...no confectioner's sugar).
So basically - the fundamental recipe works. Did I mention I forgot to use baking powder and used baking soda instead? Yeah late night baking!
Love these eggless and easy easy baked biscuits!
Yum.
This also reminds me that I haven't made apple biscuits in ages and ages. It's the same basic idea: make an ordinary cream or baking powder biscuit dough, press it out into a square, then butter the dough, sprinkle with cinnamon sugar and peeled and chopped apple, roll it into a spiral, slice and bake.
I made these for breakfast today and they were really yummy. Well, I used the recipe as a guideline. I didn't have cinnamon chips so I used chocolate but dusted a layer of cinnamon in the middle and on top. I subbed whole wheat flour and it worked without any issues.
I also just divided the dough in half, pressed one half on the bottom and one half on top, then sliced into quarters after cooking. I added some cinnamon to the glaze.
Thanks for the simple recipe!
I just made these with King Arthur all purpose gluten free flour and homemade cinnamon chips - had to add about 1/4 cup for the dough to be stiff enough to turn out onto the counter, but these turned out SO beautifully. Thanks for the easily modified and super delicious recipe!
Oh my, these look wonderful, I'll have to try this recipe soon.
A small change: In the recipe I noted that you can use either light or heavy cream. It's very flexible; I've used both, and since heavy cream is usually more easily found, I just wanted to make it clear that you can use either.
Whole milk or half and half, though, will be too thin; the recipe would need to be adapted a bit to allow for either of those.
Even easier: a can of evaporated milk, 2/3 c brown sugar and cinnamon. Defrost a loaf of frozen, store-bought bread dough. Put in a greased glass dish and pour the evaporated milk on top, sprinkle the brown sugar and cinnamon to your liking. Let the loaf rise then toss it in the oven and bake.
Effortless gooey cinnamon breakfast treat.
@randomname
Cinnamon chips are basically just a solid fat (palm oil, hydrogenated oils, etc) with cinnamon, sugar, and vanilla flavoring. You can mix up some butter, sugar, and cinnamon and spread that between the layers and on top.
Another idea would be to use white chocolate chips (just like cinnamon chips without the flavoring) and a generous sprinkle of cinnamon.
@ephilides
Two thumbs WAY up! You win the "Post of the day"!
Seconding the thanks to ephilides.
love the thought of this recipe but am not a fan of cinnamon and even though I would have attempted the original recipe, I did not have the cinnamon chips. I decided to change it up and instead of using cream (which I did not have at 6am), I used low fat milk but added melted butter to kick up the richness. After reading the reviews, I also figured I would add a bit more sugar to sweeten up the biscuit just a tad. In place of the Cinnamon chips, I spooned in a teaspoon of Raspberry jam as the recipe is somewhat like a quick scone (is it just me?).
The result was a very runny dough that required possibly about a half cup or less of additional flour. The dough became rather sticky and I had drop the dough into the pan with a large spoon instead of forming a rectangle as was directed in the recipe. This dough has taken twice as long to cook in the oven but looks like it set up well and am almost ready to pull it out of the oven.
I'll post a final comment after brunch.
*crossing fingers that they've turned out well*
I made these using James Beard's Creme Biscuits recipe. The cinnamon chips I used burned on the top and didn't melt very well in the middle. I used the Hershey's brand and I wondered if the author used King Arthur brand. Could have been the difference. After I scrapped off the burnt top chips and frosted them with the glaze, they were good but not sure I would use this brand of chips again. James Beards biscuit method is wonderful!!!
They were great, I did not have cinnamon chips so used plain cinnamon, some sugar and shortening to replace them. yummy
Allysak--to make these non-dairy use Mimic Creme. It should be available at Wegman's but I have found this varies from store to store; also, Whole Foods and some nature food stores. Also it is available at cosmosveganshoppe.com (along with a whippable version called Healthy Top). You should also know that the King Arthur cinnamon chips are not dairy free--try the King Arthur cinnamon flav-r-bites instead or if anyone else knows of a dairy free cinnamon chip?
These are delicious, but DO NOT USE HERSHEY'S CINNAMON CHIPS. They turn to waxy powder. Next time I'm going to mash together some cinnamon, butter, and sugar and use that as my filling and topping. They were divine, though the sugar rush left me inebriated for a couple hours.
I'm not sure what happened, but following the recipe given gave me a dough too soft to pat into a rectangle, much less make eight squares. I added more flour--probably about a cup, and it did much better. (Maybe a misprint?) I couldn't find cinnamon chips anywhere, so I incorporated some brown sugar and cinnamon into some cold butter, and sprinkled it in place of the chips. Even through all of these changes, they were amazing!
okay-- I thought it was just my pregnant brain, but I feel better now seeing other comments. I was so excited to make these and I followed the recipe to a tee-- the dough was like cake batter-- no way I was going to be able to out it on the counter and pat it out to cut. So I poured it into the pan as it was-- it baked like a cake, but it was dense like bread pudding-- it was quite terrible. And the measurements for the glaze are way off too-- I followed the recipe for that without thinking, and it was so watery! What a waste of ingredients. Most of it ended up in the garbage :(
Note: Reading comments I see some people having problems with this recipe. Let me be really clear: If you do not use heavy cream, as called for in the recipe, your results will be very different. All the fat in the recipe comes from the cream, so if you substitute milk or a lower fat dairy product, you will end up with a very runny dough.
The same goes for the glaze; if you're not using cream, the glaze will be way too thin.
I'll note, though, in the steps, to pour in just enough to make a thick, wet dough.
But again, if you don't want to use cream, I would recommend simply using another biscuit recipe, as any substitutions would mean tweaking the proportions of the whole recipe.
Does anyone have any ideas where I can get the chips other than King Arthur? I do not want to pay their shipping cost.
i found cinnamon chips at super wal mart....in the baking isle of course. i made these this morning and they were great! my husband isn't a fan of chocolate (i know, such a weirdo!) and gets excited when i make things that don't have chocolate. these were great. the cinnamon chips didn't melt on the top of my biscuits even after microwaving them for a few seconds after taking them out of the oven. but they were delicious anyway. the cinnamon in the middle was nice and ooey gooey good!
Ok so, I think I understand that in the USA a "biscuit" is what I might call a "scone" I know how to make these. But what on earth is a canned biscuit? How can you "can" a biscuit/scone?
I'm pretty sure they mean canned biscuit dough. And US biscuits aren't exactly the same as, say, English scones. :)
I'm surprised at the number of people who have found cinnamon chips so easily! I've looked at every grocery story in my town (of 100,000+) and not only does no one carry them, but when I ask store clerks, they give me funny looks and say, we've never seen anything like that... Maybe I'll try the butter/sugar/cinnamon modification. Any suggestions on proportions?
I find those chips to be something I don't want to add to my food (palm oil, hydrogenated stuff, etc.) esp. when cinnamon and sugar is so easy to come by. Haven't made this but def won't do it w/ yukky cinn. chips. Above there is a recipe for substituting butter, brwn. sugar and cinn...you cd add vanilla prob. Faith, any suggesions? Thanks all.
So, I stumbled across this recipe ages ago, but didn't make them. Finally, I decided I needed something gooey and cinnamony, so I went and got cinnamon chips and made this. I have to say, it looked so much better than it tasted. Don't get me wrong, the part that was actually homemade (the biscuits) tasted wonderful.... But I'm not a fan of "foods" made with artificial flavors and hydrogenated oils (or natural flavors that they refuse to actually specify) so I should have known I wouldn't like the filling.
However, I enjoyed the biscuit part so much that I used it in place of the canned biscuit dough in the following recipe: http://www.yumsugar.com/Reader-Recipe-Monkey-Bread-1875603
I used a bread pan instead of a bundt pan, and brown sugar instead of white sugar for coating the dough balls. It only needed 20 minutes in my oven. Everything else, I kept the same.
And we have a winner! This was exactly what I was looking for. So even though your original recipe was not successful for me, I am very happy I discovered it anyway, otherwise I'd never have found such a lovely biscuit recipe.
So I had no problem with any part of this til I put them in the oven. After almost 25 minutes they still weren't done except the edges. I finally had to give up and take them out before the edges started burning. Not sure what happened.