Welcome to Bon Appétit Bake Club, a community of curious bakers. Each month senior test kitchen editors Jesse Szewczyk and Shilpa Uskokovic share a must-make recipe and dive deep on why it works. Come bake and learn with us—ask questions, share pics, listen to our podcast, and lots more here.
Like a float in a Thanksgiving parade, this giant cinnamon roll impresses through sheer size alone. The overflowing bun feels like a never ending spiral of sticky, gooey filling and fluffy bread. The dough is milk-bread-adjacent and comes together easily in a stand mixer. Milk powder and tangzhong make it cottony and tender, but sturdy enough to hold in all of the rich, sweet filling.
The filling is a revelation. It starts off as any standard cinnamon bun filling—brown sugar, cinnamon, butter, a bit of salt—but where things start to get a little offbeat is in the addition of a few spoons of instant vanilla pudding mix. A rich source of modified food starch, the sneaky powder makes the filling fluid and glossy, remaining miraculously ooey-gooey even 24 hours later.
Since the bun is the main protagonist, the frosting is admittedly a modest supporting actor. But if you’re a frosting-or-nothing type of person, double it (or even triple it, you crazy thing) for an even more extravagant experience. The cinnamon bun is best eaten within 6 hours of making it. Should it hang around longer, give it the shortest of zaps in a microwave on 50% power, just enough to bring it back to life but not long enough to melt the frosting.
