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Cinnamon Knots are a sweet bread tied in a knot covered in cinnamon and sugar served with vanilla icing. Perfect for an appetizer, snack or dessert.
Cinnamon Knots
Cinnamon knots are a treat that is easy to make and looks as great as they taste. Serving them as a nice sweet snack, dessert or even an appetizer can easily get you the approval from everybody that you share them with (if you decide to share them!)
This easy cinnamon knots recipe is a great yeast dough recipe that doesn’t require much effort and with help of the Instant Pot it can be made fairly quickly as well. Don’t worry, I’ll have instructions for if you don’t have an Instant Pot, as well.
If you are a yeast bread fan (like I obviously am 😉 ) definitely check out my Garlic Knots, Homemade Soft Pretzels, Cinnamon Rolls and French Bread Recipe.
Ingredients Needed to make Cinnamon Knots
- Warm Water
- Dry Active Yeast- you can use quick rise, too if that is all that you have!
- Sugar
- Melted Butter- Oil can be substituted if in a bind, but I like the results when using the melted butter better.
- Salt
- Flour- All purpose flour is what you’ll use. No bread flour needed.
- Cinnamon and Sugar
- Vanilla Icing- The vanilla icing is made up of butter, milk, vanilla and powdered sugar. I make a half batch of my Cinnamon Roll Icing to dunk these cinnamon knots into.
How to Make Cinnamon Knots
Making Cinnamon Knots really shouldn’t be anything that intimidates you. The dough comes together easily, and honestly is the best dough in the world to work with. The texture and elasticity are just magical.
I would definitely recommend using a stand mixer of some sort while making this recipe if you can, if not, feel free to skip the gym for a few days. 😉 You can stir everything with a wooden spoon and then knead by hand.
You can find step by step directions on how to make the dough in the recipe card below. Here, I’d like to talk more about shaping those knots!!
How to tie dough into a knot
First it is important to divide your dough into even portions to make consistent rolls.
Once you have your dough pieces cut equally, one at a time, roll into a nice long rope.
Create a ‘U’ shape and then cross the top, like pictured below.
The piece of dough that is on top will then fold back and under coming through the center hole, tying a knot. Then take the ends and tuck them into the center, where the ends naturally want to go, like shown in the photo below.
Repeat with the remaining dough.
Again, this dough should be extremely easy to work with. If it is too sticky, knead a little bit more flour into it.
We will let these bad boys rest while our oven preheats. We will bake them and then hit them with a little melted butter and cinnamon and sugar when we pull them out!
How long do cinnamon knots last?
Because theses are homemade and do not have extra additives in them to make the dough stay fluffy for longer like most store bought items do, these are best eaten fresh out of the oven or within the first few hours.
If you are wanting to keep some for later, I suggest freezing the rolls as soon as they have completely cooled down. when you re ready to eat them, reheat them by placing in a 425° oven for 8-10 minutes
How can I change the cinnamon knots to a different flavor?
You can adjust the flavors by adding to or switching the seasoning spices in the cinnamon sugar mixture. Swapping out the cinnamon in the cinnamon sugar mixture for a pumpkin pie spice or an apple pie spice can give these little knots a great flavor perfect for fall tailgating.
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Love all the bread?? Me, too. Here are a few of my favs!
- Pretzel bites
- No Knead Pizza Dough
- Olive Garden Breadsticks
- Cinnamon Rolls
- Focaccia Bread Recipe
- Honey Wheat bread
- Asiago Cheese Bagels
- Dinner Rolls
Cinnamon Knots
Ingredients
Dough
- 1 cup warm water
- 1 pkg dry active yeast
- 1 tbsp sugar
- 1 tbsp melted butter
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 1/2 cups flour
Vanilla Icing
- 1/4 cup butter, softened
- 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 tbsp milk
- 3/4 tsp vanilla
Cinnamon and Sugar Topping
- 1/4 cups butter, melted
- 1/4 cup cinnamon and sugar mixture
Instructions
- Add the warm water, yeast and sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer. Let sit for 5 minutes or until bubbly. If the yeast isn't bubbly, it isn't active and the pretzels will not work. Repeat this step with new yeast until it is bubbly.
- Add the melted butter, salt and flour to the stand mixer. Turn on LOW and allow the stand mixer to knead the dough for 10 minutes.
- The dough should be very soft, but shouldn't stick to the sides of the bowl at all.
- Allow the dough to rise until double. (1 hour on the counter) If using the Instant Pot, spray the liner with non stick spray and then let the dough rise in the Instant Pot on the Yogurt NORMAL setting for 15 minutes.
- After the dough has doubled, punch down the dough and divide into 12 equal sized pieces. (Cut dough into thirds, and then quarter each third)
- Shape each knot by rolling each portion of dough into a long rope, tie a knot and then tuck the ends into the center. Arrange on a greased pan. Repeat with remaining dough.
- Allow the dough to rise while the oven preheats to 400°
- Bake at 400° for 8-10 minutes.
- While the rolls are baking, combine all of the vanilla glaze ingredients in a small bowl with a hand mixer until smooth. Set aside.
- Immediately after the rolls come out of the oven, brush with melted butter and then sprinkle with the cinnamon and sugar.
- Serve with the vanilla glaze.
- Best eaten within the hour. If you'd like to store for a longer period of time, I suggest freezing the pretzels as soon as they are cool. Reheat the pretzels in the oven at 425° for 8-10 minutes.
