I love apple pie and I love cinnamon rolls.  In the grand scheme of things, they are for sure in my top 5 favorite dessert items.  I’m honestly a little disappointed in myself that it took me until now to do it.

This is the simplest, easiest recipe for cinnamon rolls ever because you don’t have to make any dough.  That’s right, no kneading or rising or rolling for you.  Just a quick stop at the grocery store for a box of frozen puff pastry and you are good to go.

I decided to use puff pastry for a couple of reasons.  Mainly, because I wanted these to have an air of pie about them, and puff pastry was definitely the way to do that.

Not quite as doughy as a classic cinnamon roll.  Still gooey and doughy in the center, but on the outside, flaky, buttery goodness.  You know, like pie crust.

Also, I was feeling lazy and I already had to cook an apple pie filling, but I promise that wasn’t the main reason.

I assembled the entire thing on a sheet of parchment paper.  Parchment is the best surface to work with puff pastry on, because it can stick to things really easily, and as an added bonus, when you’re done, you can just crumple the whole sheet up and throw it in the garbage for super easy clean up.

Now, lets talk about these rolls.  They really had all the flavors and textures that you would expect if an apple pie and a cinnamon roll had a baby.  Butter, cinnamon, apples, doughy on the inside, pie crust like on the outside.

These would be the perfect breakfast on any holiday.  Christmas or Thanksgiving or Easter morning.  Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, you get the picture.  They were ready to pop in the oven in about 15 minutes with no rising required.

Hope you enjoy!

A Rumbly in my Tumbly original recipe.

Ingredients:
1 box of puff pastry (2 sheets) thawed
2 large granny smith apples, diced very small
1 cup brown sugar, divided
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon divided
5 tablespoons butter, divided

Powdered sugar for dusting

Icing:
2 oz room temperature cream cheese
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:
Preheat your oven to 400°.  Spray a 9 inch cake pan with non-stick spray and place a parchment paper circle on the bottom.

Dice your apples very small and put them in a pan over medium heat with 1 tablespoon of butter, 1/2 cup brown sugar, and 2 teaspoons cinnamon.  Cook for about 3 minutes, until the apples have softened.  The apples have a lot of juice in them, so the mixture will get a little watery.  This is normal.  Place the apples aside to cool.

Melt 4 tablespoons of butter in a measuring cup.  Mix together the remaining 1/2 cup brown sugar and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon.

Place your puff pastry flat and spread each sheet with half of the melted butter.  Top with the cinnamon/sugar mixture.  Using a slotted spoon, spread half of the apples on each sheet, leaving as much liquid as possible in the bowl (you will have some apple liquid, but really, you’re just going for the apples here)

Starting at one end, gently roll up each sheet.  Cut off the very ends and then divide each sheet into 6 equal rolls.  Place around your prepared cake pan.

Bake 18-20 minutes until the tops of the rolls are browned.  If you look in your oven in between, don’t panic if the rolls are kind of tipping over and looking messy.  They will rebound and look perfect when the pastry starts to puff up and they are done.

Mix icing ingredients together while rolls are baking.  When rolls are done, cool for about 10 minutes, then dust with powdered sugar and drizzle with icing.

Enjoy!