Easy Cinnamon Roll Cake is absolute perfection. It’s simple to make, crazy delicious loaded with cinnamon sugar and covered in sweet icing!
This cinnamon roll cake recipe is easily a favorite in my house. I actually thought I had shared the recipe for this cake a long time ago…turns out I didn’t. You see when you bake as often as I do things get jumbled. Maybe it’s all the sugar? Nah…
Anyhow, this is the world’s easiest cake. My kids even request it for their birthday cake which seems so weird to me…hello no buttercream…but we all know kids are weird. Or maybe they aren’t…this cake is that good.
Yes, my cake mix-phobic friends I short-cutted this. I know, I know, you are all probably so disappointed in me. I am always looking for doctored up yellow cake mix recipes, and this cinnamon roll cake is the perfect example of when it’s RIGHT to use a cake mix. But yes please, if you would like to use your own cake recipe please do so. Just start the recipe when you add cinnamon sugar…I’ll explain that in a minute.
But first let’s take a look…the gooey cake, the drippy icing, the swirly cinnamon.
Hold me.
How to make Easy Cinnamon Roll Cake
Like I said the cinnamon roll cake itself it super duper easy. You’re basically doctoring up a cake mix a little bit.
THEN you make a little (a lot) of cinnamon sugar.
You sprinkle that all over the top of the batter…
And gently swirl that in with a knife…
Don’t over swirl it though. You don’t want to mix it all in, you want gorgeous ribbons of cinnamon throughout.
Bake it up and it behold…
And then make a quick icing and behold again…
Your cake will be drowning in icing and loving every minute.
And if you can, wait until the icing sets up to cut it…
Or don’t. I get you.
Make it. Eat it. Love it.
This Easy Cinnamon Roll Cake Recipe will quickly become a favorite in your house!
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Easy Cinnamon Roll Cake
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 35 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: serves 10 1x
- Category: Cake
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: Dessert
Description
This recipe is one of the most requested cake recipes in my house. My family loves it!
Ingredients
- 1 (15.25- ounce) box yellow cake mix
- 4 eggs
- 3/4 cup vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1 cup sour cream (not light)
- 1 cup light brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 3 tablespoons milk
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 325°F. Coat a 9×13 pan with nonstick spray and set aside.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer combine the cake mix, eggs, oil, vanilla and sour cream. Mix on low for 30 seconds and then raise the speed to medium and mix for 2 minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary.
- Spread the cake batter into your prepared pan. In a medium bowl whisk together the brown sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle this evenly on top of your cake.
- Using a butter knife gently swirl the cinnamon sugar into the cake batter. Don’t over-swirl, as you want ribbons of the mixture throughout the cake.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick entered into the center of the cake comes out clean.
- Cool cake for 15-20 minutes.
- In a medium bowl whisk together the powdered sugar and milk. Pour this over the slightly warm cake. Allow the icing to set, or eat right away!
Notes
Store airtight at room temperature for up to 3 days.
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 1 slice
- Calories: 367
- Sugar: 36 g
- Sodium: 79.9 mg
- Fat: 21.9 g
- Carbohydrates: 40.3 g
- Protein: 4.5 g
- Cholesterol: 82.5 mg
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Helpful tip… Out of sour cream? Here’s a sour cream substitute!
Made this in bundt pan. Added 3/4 cup toasted finely chopped hazelnuts to brown sugar & cinnamon. Poured half batter in oil-sprayed pan, then spread 1/2 sugar/cin/hazelnuts mix, top with remaining batter then spread remaining sugar/cin/nuts. Used knife to spread mix thru the batter. Baked at 350° for 50 min. Checked w toothpick. Came out great!!
Great tips!! So glad you liked it!
I added chopped pecans to the brown sugar topping. Hello!
Great idea!!
If I’m preparing it with two cake mixes do I just double the ingredients?
Yes, but you would also need to use 2 pans as it would be too much for one 9×13 🙂
I made this with a gluten free yellow cake mix purchased at Strouds! The cake mix called for a smaller baking pan, which I actually used an old Longeberger pie plate!
It was a huge hit with my coworkers, I should have baked two!
I was craving cinnamon rolls but didn’t want to go through the whole process of kneading dough and waiting. I came across this recipe, made it as written and it came out delicious! Thank you for sharing your recipe.
So glad you liked it!!
This recipe is so seriously yummy even if you mess up as I did! I had everything lined up, pan prepped and ready to go. When I put the cake on the cooling rack I saw the bowl of cinnamon and sugar. OOPS. I poked the cake all over and heated the sugar/cinnamon mixture in the microwave just until it glistened-about 20 seconds- then dumped it on the still hot cake, spread it around. A few minutes later I covered this with the icing. This was for a party the next day so there was no testing it out until then. Phew! It was still a yummy success!
So good, even without the icing (we prefer whipped or ice cream instead of frostings/icings)! I ran out of vanilla and had a bit of maple extract to use up, so subbed that, along with two types of cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg. Used spices in the cake batter and the sugar mix. Ran out of sour cream and yogurt, so used applesauce. Cake was light and moist with a rich, warm, complex, yet subtle, flavor. A pinch of sea salt on top makes for an incredible bite, btw. Huge hit in my house, have made it twice and will keep turning $1 Yellow Cake mixes into this delicious treat.
This is a very easy and yummy cake! I have made it 5 times, and the last 2 times I have used a butter pecan cake mix which really takes it to the next level!! I will say that it tastes much better on the second day, so I always make it a day ahead of time. I suspect that the people who are having difficulty are either not reading the instructions, using the wrong ingredients (e.g., white sugar instead of icing sugar) or are using their own scratch cake recipe.
Love the idea of using butter pecan cake!
I tried this recipe today. I used butter instead of oil. Cake isa bit on dry side after cooking 37 minutes. The cinnamon is not in the midle after swirling it around real good. I drizzled cream cheese icing on it. everyone likes it. I feel it could have turned out a bit better.
I made this but I had a problem with the brown sugar topping. It didn’t swirl into the cake at all. It just sat on top and remained as grainy sugar. The cake still tasted good, but there was no cinnamon/brown sugar swirl at all. I’m thinking it would work better if I put half the cake batter, half the brown sugar/cinnamon, second half of cake batter, second half of brown sugar/cinnamon and swirled that. Anyway, just wanted to let you know that I had this issue.