Overnight Cinnamon Roll Casserole

Name: Overnight Cinnamon Roll Casserole
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 35 min
Yield: Serves 8
Ingredients: 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, melted; 1 package frozen cinnamon rolls (12 rolls) or 2 cans refrigerated cinnamon rolls, cut into quarters; 4 eggs; 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream; 1/3 cup granulated sugar; 2 teaspoons vanilla extract; 1 teaspoon cinnamon; 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg; Cream cheese frosting from cinnamon roll package

Not a morning person? You can still have your cinnamon rolls and eat them too.

Kristy Norrell

While I love making from-scratch cinnamon rolls (and eating them too), it’s not something I do all that often because they A) take a fair bit of planning and time and B) I am not and never will be a morning person. So, I save them for special occasions and special guests and while that keeps them special, it leaves me without the true frequency of fresh-from-the-oven gooey cinnamon rolls I’d like in my life. That’s where this Overnight Cinnamon Roll Casserole saves the day. Using some store-bought shortcuts and an overnight set-it-and-forget-it method, it’s the French toast bake meets cinnamon roll situation you’ve been waiting for.

See, this uses storebought cinnamon rolls, which feels a little bit like cheating but since we’re doctoring them with a French toast method, I feel mighty okay about it. You can use the kind in the can or the frozen variety (but thaw them if you go with the latter). Star with some melted butter in a 9×13-inch baking dish, then cut the cinnamon rolls into quarters and scatter them in the dish.

Save those icing packets for later.

Then you’ll whisk up some eggs, heavy cream, vanilla, cinnamon, sugar, and nutmeg. (That’s the French toast mixture.) Pour that over the cinnamon rolls, cover the dish with foil, and tuck the whole thing in the fridge to chill overnight.

If you really want this right away, that’s okay, you can bake it without the overnight wait, it just won’t have time to soak up the custard. But if you let it sit overnight, the dough and the custard become wonderful friends. And you get to sleep a little longer.

Bake covered for about thirty minutes, but let the casserole tell you, not the timer. You want the center to be cooked through and no longer doughy. But of course you want everything to still be delightfully soft, so keep an eye on it!

After ten minutes out of the oven, take that cream cheese icing and pour it all over the top so the warmth can help it settle into all those lovely nooks and crannies. It’s so simple and there’s so many warm ooey-gooey cinnamon rolls in your future.