Cinnamon Roll Layer Cake is the perfect excuse to eat cake for breakfast! Three layers of buttery, cinnamon cake filled with cinnamon buttercream frosting and a sweet cinnamon glaze!
If you have been a reader of my website for any length of time, you know I love a cinnamon cake recipe. Heck, I am a cinnamon dessert fan in general! I’ve made: Easy Cinnamon Roll Cake, Cinnamon Roll Pound Cake, Cinnamon Roll Breakfast Bake, Biscuit Cinnamon Rolls, Cinnamon Roll Cookie Bars…heck, I’ve even made a Cinnamon Roll MILKSHAKE to name a few!
SO when I realized I had never made a Cinnamon Roll Layer Cake, I knew I needed to remedy that! Plus, cake for breakfast…you don’t have to twist my arm.
How to make Cinnamon Roll Layer Cake
This cinnamon roll cake recipe is a delicious, buttery, cinnamon cake. It’s soft, with a tender crumb. I use sour cream in this recipe, which adds to the moist texture of this cinnamon cake!
The cinnamon cake batter comes together easily, and makes 3, 8- inch cake layers! And we all know a 3 layer cake means extra frosting. Get excited!
How to make Cinnamon Frosting
When the cakes are baking I made the cinnamon frosting. It’s a creamy cinnamon buttercream frosting recipe, and I’m having dreams of using this on cinnamon rolls!
Also note this recipe makes A TON of frosting. I consider myself to have a heavy hand when it comes to buttercream, and I still had a lot left. I am certainly not complaining, though! And like I said…a little extra cinnamon frosting will be fab on my cinnamon rolls!
A delicious cinnamon glaze adds to the flavor of the cake!
A fun step in this recipe is the addition of a cinnamon glaze that you let soak into the cake. It really packs cinnamon flavor. You mix some brown sugar, cinnamon, powdered sugar, and water together!
When the cakes are baked and cooled you can “level” them with a serrated knife to remove the domes. You do this so as you stack the layers they will be flat.
You spread the glaze right on the top of the cake and let it soak in which happens quickly, especially when you level it…
Now you just spread on some frosting…
And repeat!!
If you feel like getting fancy go ahead and use some of the extra cinnamon frosting to pipe swirls on the tops and/or around the bottom of the cinnamon roll layer cake.
I used Wilton Tip 1M and Wilton disposable piping bags.
Oh, and a healthy sprinkle of cinnamon to cover up my poor piping skills!
Look at the slice! This Cinnamon Roll Layer Cake is a show stopper! This is a cinnamon cake recipe you will make time and time again!
PrintCinnamon Roll Layer Cake
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Yield: serves 10 1x
Yield:
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PinDescription:
This Cinnamon Roll Layer Cake recipe is three layers of buttery, cinnamon cake filled with cinnamon buttercream frosting and a sweet cinnamon glaze!
Ingredients:
Cake
- 3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
- 3/4 cup sour cream, room temperature
- 2 teaspoons vanilla
- 6 large egg whites, divided
- 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 4 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (see note)
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 3/4 cup milk, room temperature
- 1/4 cup water, room temperature
Cinnamon Frosting
- 1 1/2 cups salted butter, room temperature
- 1 1/2 cups vegetable shortening
- 12 cups powdered sugar, divided
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon (see note)
- 1/4 cup water or milk
Cinnamon Sugar Glaze
- 5 tablespoons powdered sugar
- 2 tablespoons light brown sugar, packed
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons water
Instructions:
Cake
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line the bottom of 3 (8- inch) cake pans with parchment paper and grease the sides. (I used nonstick spray).
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment cream the butter and sugar together on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3-4 minutes. Add the sour cream and vanilla and mix until combined. Add 3 of the egg whites and mix until well combined. Add the remaining 3 egg whites and mix until well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed to make sure everything is combined.
- Whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt in a medium bowl. In a small bowl combine the milk and water. With the mixer on low speed add half of the flour mixture to the batter and mix until combined. Add the milk mixture to the batter and mix until combined. Add the remaining flour and mix until smooth, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary.
- Divide the batter evenly among the 3 cake pans. Bake for 23-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cakes comes out clean.
- Allow the cakes to cool 2-3 minutes in the pan and then remove them from the pans onto a wire rack to cool completely.
Frosting
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment beat the butter and shortening together on medium speed until smooth. Slowly add in 6 cups of the powdered sugar and mix until smooth. Add in the vanilla, cinnamon and water or milk and mix until smooth. Slowly add the remaining 6 cups of powdered sugar and mix until smooth, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary.
Cinnamon Sugar Glaze
- In a small bowl whisk together powdered sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and water until smooth. Set aside.
Assembly
- Use a large serrated knife to carefully remove any domes the cake formed when baking, so they’re flat. Place the first cake on a serving plate. Spread 2 1/2 tablespoons of the glaze over the cake layer. All it to soak into the cake. Spread 1 cup of frosting onto the top of the cake. Repeat the process with the second layer of the cake, and then add the final layer of cake and frost as desired.
Notes:
In the cake I used 2 teaspoons cinnamon.
And in the frosting I used 1 1/2 tablespoons of cinnamon, while the original recipe calls for 1 teaspoon.
I had quite a bit of frosting leftover, which I am saving for my next batch of cinnamon rolls!
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A few weeks ago I received Simply Beautiful Homemade Cakes by Lindsay Conchar. Lindsay is the talent behind the blog, Live, Love and Sugar. She makes some of the most delicious (and beautiful) cakes going right now. This cake recipe is from her book!
Helpful tip… out of sour cream?
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Hi! I’m Shelly and I’m an addict. Of the buttercream sort. I started this site a few years ago as a way to justify my sugary, buttery obsession with desserts. It has worked out well for me so far, because as it turns out you guys all love sugary, buttery desserts too! It feels good to know you're not alone, doesn’t it?
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Only used half the icing and used a crumb topping made of butter, flour, brown sugar and cinnamon. Didnt have any shortening for the icing but still tastes amazihg
★★★★★
Your cake looks amazing!! Thanks for sharing your picture!
Making this for my husband’s birthday later this month. Tha is for putting the sour cream substitution on the page as we have a relative who is allergic to sour cream. Thinking of putting a crumb topping around the sides
Oooh, great idea with the crumb topping!
Just made the cake part and they are terribly flat. There’s no “dome” on top for me to cut off so I’m questioning whether the glaze will soak in at all. Any tips you can give would be greatly appreciated! I’m either going to remake this recipe or search for a new one.
Thanks!
This cake was amazing!!! Huge hit for a birthday cake!!! Thank you!!!
★★★★★
So glad you liked it!!!!
Hi! Just wondering if the baking time would change at all if I baked this cake as one cake to slice into layers after baking?
Depending on the size of your pan, most likely!
It calls for 4 teaspoons. Is this correct?
of baking powder, yes 🙂
Me And my mom are having a Baking Competition. This is definatly what I am using. So thank you so much for the recipe!?
This was fantastic! Stepdaughter requested a cinnamon layer cake for her birthday, and I was intrigued by this recipe. The cake was fantastic, not dry at all! I’m not a buttercream fan, though, so I made a cream cheese frosting and added cinnamon to it. We had a happy family tonight – thank you for the recipe!
★★★★
I had a terrible time with this cake. My first attempt I tried to make 3 rounds despite being skeptical of the amount of batter. I figured maybe it would rise a good bit while baking…they came out like pancakes. The second attempt I meant for 2 rounds and they came out on the thinner side but they were at least useable. Any idea what the problem might be??
★★
Would this be gluten free if I sub buckwheat flour
is there 940 calories in the whole cake or in one slice ?
In each slice. It’s a very large cake and you could absolutely cut the slices smaller.
Can this recipe done for a single layer cake that is 9″? I am a beginner baker and haven’t exactly got my reduction of ingredients down. Any help would be great.
★★★★
I would actually recommend using this recipe instead! It’s great, easy and one of my family’s most favorite cakes! https://cookiesandcups.com/easy-cinnamon-roll-cake/
Tasted good ratio of icing to cake was out of balance had half a bowl of icing leftover and still had to much icing on cake think only needs about 1/4 of the icing
★★★
This recipie looks amazing, I have been asked to make a cinnamon cake for an upcoming birthday and this is the best recipie I have found however I am struggling with converting the cups to grams, do you have this recipie in grams please as I would love to make this!
I don’t have this recipe converted to grams, but I have a handy chart on my site that will help your conversions. You can even print it out to keep in your kitchen! http://cookiesandcups.com/cups-grams-conversion-chart/
I made this for a work event and everyone loved it!! A number of people said it reminded them of their childhood and something their grandma used to make 🙂
Great recipe – thanks for sharing! I made it with the extra cinnamon like you did and it was delicious. The only thing I would change next time is use more butter and less shortening in the frosting, but that’s just my personal preference.
★★★★★
Is it one tablespoon of cinnamon in the frosting? In your note about using more it’s says teaspoon and tabkespoon, confused me…
Since the recipe is from a book, I wanted to write the recipe as they wrote it… but I found that I preferred a little more cinnamon, so the note is how I made it…and the recipe (as written) is how it appears in the book. Hope that clears it up!
This cake is amazing! My son won grand champion in our local 4-H fair with it!
Love hearing that!!!
How could I make this cake ahead of time and freeze?
Would this work for a half sheet cake by doubling the recipe?
I want to make this for work but cupcakes are so much easier for staff to grab and go (and no one loses the knife/server) but I can’t figure out how to translate this one (with the glaze between levels) if you have any ideas I’d love to hear them!
i’m no expert baker, or even vaguely a baker, but maybe try making it like a “stuffed” cupcake with a hole for icing in the middle? you could put the glaze in there before you add frosting
How far ahead can this cake be frosted? It looks terrific.
You could certainly do it the day before!
hi
u are a good cook im making ur cake on friday as my reward
would you make any adjustments for 9 in cake pans? I don’t have 8 in
This is a perfect breakfast! Yum!
I cannot be the recipe to print. It keeps coming up blank.
That’s very strange… it seems to be working on my end.
Hi just wanted to know when the recipe says 6 egg whites ,does it mean you dont use the egg yolks in this cake
That’s correct…only egg whites.
This cake sounds and looks fabulous!!!
I too am a fan of extra cinnamon!
Thank you for sharing this recipe!
Headed to the store so I can make this!???