Gluten Free Yeast Free Cinnamon Rolls

Name: Gluten Free Yeast Free Cinnamon Rolls
Prep time: 15 min
Cook time: 25 min
Ingredients: 4 cups (560 g) Kim's gluten free flour blend ((a store bought blend may be substituted, but hasn't been tested)); ¼ cup (45 g) baking powder; 1 tsp salt; 1 tsp baking soda; 3 sticks (¾ pound or 339 g) butter, cold and cut into ¼-inch thick slices; 2 large eggs, cold; 1¾ cups buttermilk, cold; ⅓ cup (75 g) butter, melted; 1 cup plus 2 tbsp (250 g) packed light brown sugar; 1 tbsp ground cinnamon; 4 ounces (113 g) cream cheese, softened; 4 tbsp (½ a stick or 57 g) butter, softened; 2 cups (250 g) powdered sugar; 1 tsp vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste; ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar

Modified: Nov 26, 2025 · Published: Apr 1, 2020 by Kim · This post may contain affiliate links · 24 Comments

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Don't have any yeast and stuck at home? You can still make these flaky and soft gluten free yeast free cinnamon rolls and you'll love them!!

I've been thinking about making these for so long. When I finally did, I could have kicked myself for not making them sooner! They're flaky and soft just like a biscuit.

Nothing beats a real gooey and soft cinnamon roll and my ultimate gluten free cinnamon rolls are just the recipe you MUST try if you haven't yet. It's one of my top recipes of all time for a reason. The cinnamon rolls are just as good, or better as my son and husband claim, as a Cinnabon gluten-filled roll. Btw, neither of them have to eat gluten free.

But what if we don't have all the ingredients for those and we're stuck at home with no way of getting them? Or what if we just want something that's like a cinnamon roll without all the waiting that's required for those??

Then this is the recipe we need. It's so easy to make these rolls you may just find yourself making them all the time. And that's not a bad thing. That's a good thing!!

The Dough for Gluten Free Yeast Free Cinnamon Rolls

Believe it or not, the dough for these rolls is just my simple gluten free buttermilk biscuit dough. It's made up of the usual suspects for biscuits, plus a few more:

Kim's gluten free flour blend -- you can use another blend if you'd like. Just make sure it has xanthan gum in the mix.
Baking powder -- the amount of baking powder seems like a lot, but it works (trust me).
Baking soda
Salt
Butter -- this dough is loaded with butter, which makes the rolls nice and flaky. Shortening or butter-flavored non-dairy (vegan) butter can be substituted.
Eggs -- nontraditional for a biscuit dough, but we need help sometimes when it comes to gluten free baking and the eggs really work to bind everything together. If you can't have eggs, or can't find eggs right now, you can try an egg replacer such as a flax egg or something I just read in this article, the baking powder/water egg replacer OR carbonated water!
Buttermilk -- if you don't have buttermilk, you can make your own by adding about 1 tablespoon of lemon juice or white vinegar into milk and letting it sit for 10 minutes. You can also try almond milk, coconut milk, or any other non-dairy milk alternative.

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the butter chunks and squish (technical term, ha!) them between your thumb and forefingers, distributing them throughout the flour mixture. Continue mixing the butter through the flour mixture until large pieces the size of marbles still remain.

Whisk the eggs into the buttermilk and then dump the entire amount into the flour mixture. Use a spoon to carefully combine everything together. It will be a fairly wet mixture. That's what you want.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and let it rest in the refrigerator for at least 30 minutes, or up to a couple of days.

Making the Filling

The filling for these cinnamon rolls is so easy, as it is for most other cinnamon rolls. Simply mix the brown sugar and the cinnamon together until fully combined. The butter will be used separate in the next few steps.

Rolling Out the Dough

Remove the dough from the fridge and dump it out onto a well-floured surface. Knead it briefly just to bring it together and then roll it out to about ½-inch thick. It doesn't need to be perfect.

Fold the dough over like you're folding a letter. Again, this part isn't about perfection. It's just about getting those layers, as if you're making a laminated dough.

Now get serious and roll that thing out to a very large rectangle, about 20 inches wide by 18 inches long. It doesn't need to be exact. It should be about ¼-1/8 inch thick. The dough is very forgiving, but keep moving it around and sprinkling flour on the underside as needed.

Filling the Dough and Rolling it Up

There's finally a use for that melted butter in the filling! Brush it all over the dough until it's all gone. Then sprinkle your filling completely over the dough, pressing down lightly with your hands to adhere it to the butter.

Start rolling the dough up as tightly as possible along the wider side. Continue rolling all the way to the end and pinch the ends to seal. Cut the roll into 12 equal-sized pieces. I like to first cut the dough in half (using my handy dandy bench scraper). Then cut each half in half again, making 4 small rolls.

Take the bench scraper and mark each of the 4 pieces into thirds and then cut completely through to end up with 12 individual rolls. Place each roll in greased muffin pans (I used jumbo muffin pans like these, but you can also use regular muffin pans).

Place the muffin pans on a larger sheet pan to catch any drippings that may bubble out from the filling. Bake the rolls for about 25 minutes or until fully risen and golden. Remove them from the oven and allow them to cool for about 5-10 minutes before carefully removing them from each muffin well. Frost as desired, or dip the tips of each roll in granulated sugar.

Remember this recipe when you want a quick fix for a cinnamon roll or have no yeast (or just don't feel like dealing with yeast). It's the perfect yeast-free cinnamon roll for times like these 🙂