As the coffee pot rumbled, I stumbled to the fridge half asleep, and reached in to pull out my tray filled with yummy cinnamon rolls just waiting to be popped in the oven. The work, which was really quite easy, had been done the night before and these beauties rose all night while I slept.

It was a beautiful thing, I tell you. Beautiful.

I have made an untold number of Cinnamon Rolls in my life time and if you want the best, you must go with a good ole fashioned yeast roll recipe. If you love perfection in the form of carbs as much as I do, there’s  just nothing quite as wonderful as my Copy Cat Cinnabon recipe with my Easy Cream Cheese frosting. They are to-die-for homemade cinnamon rolls, and the best cinnamon roll recipe out there (based on the 100’s of people that have tried it and let me know), but they take a lot of time.

Now, it’s time well spent, but honestly, I bring that recipe out for really special occasions, not a “It’s 10 pm and I feel like some homemade cinnamon rolls in the morning” kind of an occasion.

But this Overnight, Refrigerator – Rise Cinnamon Roll recipe, this is that recipe. It’s the easiest recipe I have come up with for 100% homemade cinnamon rolls because you don’t have to wait for them to rise and they use oil, instead of butter in the batter, so they are a huge budget saver. You don’t have to mix things in multiple bowls, scald the milk, melt the butter, separate the yolk. Nope, none of that (cue angels singing.)

You literally just dump, knead, roll and go to bed.

It’s that easy.

Now, I will confess, I can mix up this dough in only a few minutes because I mix and knead these in my mixer, so if you are doing it completely by hand, the kneading process will take you a few extra minutes, but again, this will be the easiest recipe that you come across for 100% from scratch rolls.

(If you are new to using a mixer for yeast bread and visuals help you, I have a detailed video that I did a few years ago that shows you how to make my homemade French Bread in my Kitchen Aid. The steps will be identical to this, with just different ingredients.)

This weekend, we mixed up these treats both Friday and Saturday evenings. It’s the perfect recipe to teach your children and it gives them a great excuse to stay up past their bedtime.

This was my sweet daughter, live, in action, at 10 pm because we “had” to have some rolls ready for the morning. There’s just nothing better than welcoming the kids into the kitchen with these baking in the oven.

I just love it (and so do they.)

I hope you enjoy them as much as we do.

For a fun holiday change, try these Christmas tree rolls.