The Best Cinnamon Roll Bread Pudding with Orange Glaze

We refer to this at the bakery as Twice Baked Cinnamon Rolls. It is a simple recipe that is great for a delicious make ahead breakfast. We created this recipe when experimenting with bread pudding. Although we loved the bread pudding with a simple brioche bread, we wanted something more extraordinary. We then had the idea to use our leftover Jumbo Cinnamon Rolls as the base. This Cinnamon Roll Bread Pudding is a breakfast that is both fun and scrumptious to dig into.

​What is a Classic Bread Pudding?

A classic bread pudding recipe usually consists of stale bread, eggs and some kind of cream. The stale bread absorbs the custard and creates a deliciously gooey, pudding like structure. Bread pudding can be made sweet or savory and is perfect for all kinds of different occasions. 

What is a Cinnamon Roll Bread Pudding?

Cinnamon Roll bread pudding is a gooey and delicious bread pudding made with cinnamon rolls and topped with an orange glaze. Instead of stale bread, we instead use Cinnamon Rolls. It is the perfect way to use several day old Cinnamon Rolls or Cinnamon Rolls that have been in your freezer too long. You can also use store bought cinnamon rolls that on their own are not amazing, but wrapped up in a delicious custard, are elevated to a new level. 

What Cinnamon Rolls are best for this bread pudding?

At our bakery, The Flour Barn, we are known for our Jumbo Cinnamon Rolls. However, sometimes you make too much and are left with some extra rolls. A great way to use these rolls is to turn them into Bread Pudding! That is how we came up with this recipe. 

The ultimate ingredient would be to use leftover homemade Cinnamon Rolls, my favorite recipe here. When the rolls are a little stale they are able to best absorb the custard, allowing everything to meld perfectly. So the next time you are making homemade cinnamon rolls, go ahead and make some extra. This will allow you to get two amazing dishes out of your rolls. 

How to use my Leftover Cinnamon Rolls?

After your beautiful homemade cinnamon rolls come out of the oven, go ahead and ice each of them. Be sure to first enjoy a roll fresh from the oven! After enjoying your rolls with those around you, you can start prepping for your bread pudding. You have two options. You can let the rolls sit out overnight and use them the next day or a couple days later. These stale cinnamon rolls will be perfect for your bread pudding. 

If you are worried the next morning your family will be all Cinnamon Rolled out, then feel free to stick your homemade rolls in the freezer. Then when you want to make your bread pudding, just get the rolls out to defrost the night before you want to use them. 

How to assemble Cinnamon Roll Bread Pudding

Once the cinnamon rolls are baked, iced and all leftover, they are ready for this recipe. First you want to make cinnamon roll cubes by cutting or tearing your cinnamon rolls into 1-inch pieces. You then take the cinnamon roll pieces and mix them up with a spoon or even with your hands. This allows the icing and filling to be properly distributed. Take those pieces and add them directly into the dish you will be baking them in. This can be an aluminum pan, Pyrex dish, or even a cast iron skillet. It simply has to be deep enough to let the cinnamon roll pieces soak in the custard mixture. Be sure that your cinnamon roll cubes cover the entire dish. This is the pan we use to sell our bread pudding at the bakery.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, heavy cream, sugar and spices. Whisk until completely mixed together.  

Now you want to pour the  custard mixture over the cinnamon roll mixture. When you are pouring your custard mixture, make sure you soak each of the small pieces and fill the dish almost full. You don’t want there to be any dry rolls at the top or they may get burned. Then cover your baking dish in plastic wrap and stick in the fridge. We want to let this bread pudding mixture soak in the fridge for at least one hour, but up to 24 hours. The longer the better. 

After we have let our bread pudding mixture soak, we are ready to bake. This can go straight from the fridge to the oven. While your bread pudding is baking go ahead and mix your orange glaze together. This is just orange juice mixed with powdered sugar. Once your dish is done baking, remove it from the oven and let it cool for at least ten minutes. Glaze it with your orange glaze and dig in!!

How do I improve store bought Cinnamon Rolls?

Although you can make your own cinnamon rolls for this recipe, you can also buy them from the store. It is really the perfect recipe for those supermarket cinnamon rolls, because even if they are not the best, or a little stale, this recipe will make them moist, gooey and delicious. We use our bakery Jumbo Cinnamon Rolls, since we are constantly making them; so, we do suggest using large sized rolls with the icing already applied.

How do I make Pillsbury rolls gooey?

Yes, we all know the legend that is the Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls. My goal when creating our Cinnamon Roll recipe at the bakery was to create something that I actually wanted more than my favorite Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls. I will say I eventually cracked the code.

One thing that Pillsbury sometimes lacks is that gooeyness. So, let’s say you overbake your Pillsbury rolls and you just are not happy with them. Or you like the simple rolls, but wish they seemed more luxurious. Simply ice them, let them cool and then use them for this recipe. Due to the smaller size of these rolls, I would use 6-8 of them.

Do I Ice the Cinnamon Rolls before I cut them?

Yes. I always ice the cinnamon rolls before cutting them up and adding them to the pudding because I love the sweetness they provide. If you would rather not ice them before, just remember to add a little sugar to the custard to make up for the lack of sweetness from the icing.

Cinnamon Roll Bread Pudding with Orange Glaze

This delicious casserole uses cinnamon rolls and a sweet custard to make the ultimate gooey bread pudding. You then top your delicious bake with a citrusy orange glaze.

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 2 hours hrs

Cook Time 41 minutes mins

Course Breakfast

Cuisine American

Servings 8

Ingredients

  

• 4 Large Cinnamon Rolls or 6-8 small rolls
• 2 cups milk
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• pinch of salt
• Half cup Orange juice
• Two cups powdered sugar

Instructions

 

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• Cut up your Cinnamon Rolls of choice. Make sure they are already iced and cool. Set the cut pieces into an 8 x 8 baking pan, or whatever dish you are using.
• Beat together the milk, vanilla, egg and salt with a whisk in a separate bowl.
• Pour the custard mixture over the cinnamon roll pieces.
• Refrigerate this cinnamon roll casserole for at least one hour, or up to 24 hours.
• Bake for 40-45 minutes
• While waiting for your bread pudding to bake, make the orange glaze by mixing the orange juice with the powdered sugar. If the glaze is too thick, add a little more juice, and if it’s too thin, add a little more powdered sugar.
• Remove from the oven when the custard is set, but still has a little jiggle when you move it. It should be golden brown on the edges.
• Let cool for ten minutes and then cover in orange glaze.
• Enjoy!

Keyword breakfast, Brioche, cinnamon rolls