Coffee Rolls with Coffee Cream Cheese Glaze

These baked coffee rolls with coffee cream cheese are a true coffee treat. The dough has coffee, the filling has coffee and even the glaze has coffee in it! A perfect treat for coffee lovers.

These coffee rolls with coffee cream cheese glaze recipe is a great variation to the common cinnamon rolls recipe.

In this recipe, I have chosen to add coffee in the dough itself, and more coffee in the brown sugar filling and as well as the cream cheese glaze. I must say, these yeast rolls are perfectly coffee-flavored. They are soft and fluffy and the delicious coffee aroma that fills the kitchen as these lovely coffee treats bake is absolutely inviting!

The rolls are adapted from my easy yeast rolls recipe. I added instant coffee when mixing the dough resulting in a mildly flavored coffee dough. To this, I added coffee filling with is made by mixing brown sugar with instant coffee. To add more flavor, I also added coffee-flavored chocolate chips to the filling. And to complete the coffee rolls, I made cream cheese glaze flavored with more coffee.

All in all, these rolls are great coffee-based treats. You can easily adjust the amount of coffee to add to these rolls, as well as omit it from the dough, or the filling, or the glaze as you wish.

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How to Make

Ingredients

Dough

• All-purpose flour + salt
• Sugar
• Yeast
• Milk
• Instant coffee
• Eggs
• Butter

Filling

• Butter
• Brown Sugar
• Instant Coffee
• Coffee flavored chocolate chips

Glaze

• Cream cheese
• Icing sugar
• Salt
• Instant Coffee
• Milk

Mixing the dough

1. Start by measuring warm milk into a cup. Add instant coffee and mix until coffee is diluted.
2. Make sure the coffee-milk solution cools down to about 27 degrees Celsius. Pour it into a large mixing bowl. Add the yeast.
3. After that, add the sugar and eggs, flour, and salt.
4. Mix all the ingredients 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 might have to knead it for a longer time too.
6. Turn the 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 and cover with a clean kitchen towel or cling wrap.
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. Roll it into a large rectangle 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 longer side. As you roll, try to make it as tight as possible.
2. Pinch the ends together to seal.
3. Next, divide the dough log into 9 pieces. To do this, start by dividing the log into 3.
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 the 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.
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 white 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.

Let the coffee rolls cool to room temperature before serving. The rolls are delicious when they are still warm too.

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Notes

Instant Yeast

• This 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) until 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, 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 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. 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 any other of the dough, the filling, or the glaze as you wish. There is no need to adjust any other ingredients.

Dough

• The coffee roll dough is adapted from my easy yeast rolls recipe. This dough can be refrigerated and even frozen. Refrigeration is good for use within 24 hours, but if you wish to keep it longer, freezing is recommended.
• To refrigerate the dough, form it into a ball and place it in a large bowl. Cover the bowl tightly with cling wrap and place it in the fridge. The dough will continue to rise in the fridge and when you are ready to make your rolls the next day, if the dough has not proofed enough, simply let it do so at room temperature, before rolling, filling, and baking it. If it has proofed well, proceed to roll, fill, cut, and bake as usual.
• To freeze the dough, once you have finished kneading it, form it into a ball, and instead of placing it in a bowl and wrapping the bowl, you wrap the dough itself tightly with clingwrap. Place in the freezer. It is best to move the dough to the fridge section at least overnight before using it. When ready to bake, remove from the fridge, let it sit at room temperature for 20 minutes (to stop condensation), and then remove the cling wrap. Place the dough in a large bowl and let it proof (covered in a kitchen towel). Roll, fill, cut, and bake as usual.

Storage

• 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 over before consuming.

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Like this recipe? Here are my other posts you might want to check out

• Coffee Cupcakes with Coffee Buttercream
• Coffee Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Easy Coffee Jelly - An Easy Homemade Coffee Dessert
• Coffee Flavored Cake with Coffee Buttercream Frosting
• Instant Coffee Cake with Chocolate Chunks
• Ube Rolls - Soft and Fluffy Twisted Buns
• Coconut Rolls with Coconut Glaze
• Strawberry Rolls with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Filling
• Easy Yeast Rolls for Beginners

Recipe (Printable)

Here is the full printable version of my coffee rolls recipe.

And that's my easy coffee rolls recipe for you.

Happy Baking 🙂