Coffee Rolls with Coffee Cream Cheese Glaze

❤️Why you will love this recipe

• This is an easy recipe with simple ingredients.
• The recipe is easy to follow and makes the best cinnamon rolls with delicious coffee flavored dough, filling and coffee-flavored cream cheese filling. It's a great variation to the classic cinnamon rolls.
• It makes absolutely delicious coffee cinnamon rolls with coffee cream cheese frosting, perfect for coffee lovers.
• Freshly baked, these warm rolls are not only great to be enjoyed with your morning cup of coffee, they make delicious treat for anyone with a sweet tooth too.

Dough

• All-purpose flour + salt - salt cannot be added directly to yeast, hence best added with the flour.
• White sugar - sweetens the dough. Can use both coarse sugar or granulated sugar.
• Instant dry yeast - this is different from active dry yeast. With instant yeast, you need not activate the yeast by mixing it with liquid and then wait for it to froth, unlike active yeast where activation by mixing with liquid and waiting for the yeast mixture to froth is required.
• Whole milk - if using instant yeast, can be at room temperature. If using active yeast, use lukewarm milk.
• Instant coffee powder or instant coffee granules.
• Eggs - use large eggs.
• Butter - can be salted or unsalted butter. Butter should be firm but soft.

Filling

• Butter - I use salted butter, but unsalted butter will work fine.
• Brown sugar - either dark brown sugar or light brown sugar.
• Instant coffee - best to use powder form instead of granules as it dissolves more readily.
• Coffee flavored chocolate chips - either regular sized or mini chips.

Glaze

• Cream cheese - use room temperature cheese for best results.
• Powdered sugar - best sifted before using as powdered sugar tend to be lumpy.
• Salt - enhances the taste of the glaze. Use fine salt.
• Instant coffee powder or instant coffee granules.
• Whole milk - helps with the consistency of the glaze.

🧾Substitution and variations

• All purpose flour can be replaced with bread flour.
• Whole milk can be replaced with skim milk.
• If you prefer a stronger coffee taste, you can always increase the amount of coffee indicated in the recipe. Alternatively, if you would like milder coffee tasting coffee rolls, you can choose to omit the coffee in either the dough, the filling, or the glaze as you wish. There is no need to adjust any other ingredients.
• Coffee flavored chocolate chips are optional and can be omitted if you like. You can also replace them with dark chocolate chips or milk chocolate chips if you like.

Mixing the dough

1. Start by measuring milk into a cup. Add instant coffee and mix until coffee is dissolved. If the milk is hot, let the coffee solution cool down to a warm temperature at least.
2. Pour it into a large mixing bowl of a stand mixer. Add the yeast.
3. After that, add the sugar and eggs, flour, and salt into the wet ingredients.
4. Mix all the ingredients (with a dough hook attachment) until they come together into a dough ball. This should approximately 2 minutes with a mixer and longer if kneading by hand.
5. Add softened butter and continue kneading until a smooth and non-sticky dough forms.  This should take about 7 to 8 minutes. If mixing with a mixer, you can add all the butter at once. If kneading by hand, adding the butter in about 4 increments will make the kneading more manageable. You have to knead it for a longer time too.
6. Turn the soft dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead by hand to form a smooth ball (about 30 seconds).

Proofing the dough

1. Place the dough in a large bowl (grease the sides of the bowl with oil or cooking spray). Cover bowl with a clean kitchen towel or plastic wrap for its first rise.
2. Let it proof until doubled in size. This can take anywhere between 45 minutes to 2 or 3 hours, depending on the temperature where you live.

Making the coffee filling for the rolls

1. Once the dough has proofed, turn it out onto a lightly floured surface and press to remove air bubbles.
2. Using a large rolling pin, roll it into a large rectangular shape measuring about 25cm by 30cm. There is no need to knead the dough anymore. Simply turn it out and roll.
3. Brush softened butter all over the rolled dough.
4. In a small bowl, mix the brown sugar and instant coffee powder.
5. Sprinkle it all over the brushed melted butter on the dough. Use a spatula to level the filling.
6. Next, sprinkle the coffee-flavored chips all over.

Shaping the rolls

1. Start rolling the dough on the long side. As you roll, try to make it as tight as possible.
2. Pinch the ends together to seal the roll to a tight log.
3. Next, divide the dough log into 9 pieces. To do this, start by cutting the log into 3 with a sharp knife.
4. With each of the 3 sections, divide them into 3 sections each.
5. That should give you 9 sections of the roll.
6. Arrange and place rolls in a well-greased square baking tin.

Baking and glazing the coffee flavored rolls

1. Cover the tin with a kitchen towel and let the rolls proof until at least doubled in size in a warm place.
2. Bake the coffee rolls for about 20 minutes at 170 degrees Celsius until they turn golden brown.
3. To make the coffee cream cheese glaze, mix instant coffee with 1 tablespoon of warm milk. Stir to dissolve. Pour it into a medium-sized bowl. Measure cream cheese and icing sugar in.
4. Beat all the ingredients until well combined and smooth.
5. Fill the glaze into a piping bag.
6. As soon as the rolls are baked, turn them out onto a wire rack. It is advisable to remove them from the tin as soon as they bake as it is easy to remove them while they are still hot. Once cooled down, the coffee filing that has oozed to the bottom of the cake tin will make your rolls stick to the tin, hence I prefer to remove mine while they are still hot. Cut a small hole in the piping bag filled with the cream cheese glaze. Pipe the glaze all over the top of the rolls. Use a spatula to smoothen it out.

🍽️Serving & storage

• Let the coffee rolls cool to room temperature before serving. The rolls are delicious when they are still warm too.
• The baked coffee rolls are best consumed on the day they are made. Leftovers are best kept in the fridge due to the cream cheese glaze. Reheat in an oven before consuming.

Instant Yeast

• This sweet roll recipe uses instant yeast. Instant yeast is slightly different than active yeast. They are both dried yeast but instant yeast does not require activation. Activation is a process of mixing the yeast with lukewarm liquid (either milk or water) and let it rest until it turns frothy before adding other ingredients.
• Instant yeast does not require activation which means you need not wait for the yeast to turn frothy. You can if you want to test if the yeast is still alive, but it's not necessary. Mix the yeast with liquid, stir until it dissolves and add the rest of the ingredients in.

Proofing the dough

• This coffee roll recipe requires 2 stages of proofing, one immediately after kneading the dough and the other after shaping and cutting the rolls. In both stages, allow the dough to proof until it has at least doubled in size.
• The proofing time depends on the temperature of where you are staying. The dough will proof at a much faster rate in warm temperatures and can take up to 2 or 3 hours in cold temperatures. Keep the dough near a warm spot like the stove (after you have just cooked something) or keeping the dough in an oven with just the light on might help.

Coffee

• I used instant coffee in this recipe. Instant coffee comes in both powdered form as well as granules form. While it is ok to use the granules for the dough and the cream cheese glaze, it is best to use the powder form when making the filling. This is so that the coffee is finely mixed with sugar and you don’t end up with small bits of bitter coffee as you eat your coffee rolls.
• This recipe requires coffee to be added to the dough, the filling as well as the cream cheese glaze. All these are mildly flavored with coffee.

💭FAQs