Give Homemade Cinnamon Rolls Bakery-Level Magic With One Ingredient

Whether they're homemade or one of the many store-bought cinnamon roll brands on the market today, there's something incredibly satisfying about the warm and sweet dessert that few others can compare to. However, to make versions of the sweet treat at home that are on par with your favorite bakery, it's important to avoid making dry cinnamon rolls — one of the most common mistakes you can commit with the delicious dessert. When it comes to texture in particular, likely the best way to warrant the absolute best results is by adding heavy cream to your rolls before baking them, allowing the dough to absorb it in the oven and come out better than you ever thought possible.

Using heavy cream is among many monumental steps you can take to ensure your cinnamon rolls are as tasty and succulent as possible — whether they're canned or completely homemade — but stands above the rest for its ease and usefulness. All it takes is ⅓ cup of heavy whipping cream coated across your rolls in a deep baking pan or casserole dish, and enjoy the remarkable results once they're finished in the oven. While this isn't a strategy typically employed by professional bakeries (which often benefit from using a high-quality bread flour and a meticulous dough-making process), it's able to emulate the end product of professionally-made cinnamon rolls remarkably well.

Ultimately, the additional moisture is necessary for cinnamon rolls due to the fact that they're incredibly prone to overbaking. Whether you're making the dessert at too high a heat or you leave it in the oven for too long, even minor discrepancies can completely rob your cinnamon rolls of any moisture that they naturally have. In fact, possessing the ability to be incredibly precise when it comes to not overbaking the treat is another variable that separates bakery cinnamon rolls from homemade ones. With this in mind, hydrating the dough can give you a bit of a safety net in this department, and can be done using other ingredients beyond just heavy cream. Sweetened condensed milk is a great option to be added to cinnamon rolls for those with a sweet tooth, as the ingredient can really take the dessert to an entirely new level of richness by being added to the mix.

You can also mix things while still using heavy cream to make the finishing touches on your cinnamon rolls even better. Some, for example, like to add a small amount of maple syrup to their heavy cream to give them an additional hint of sweetness as they bake. Similarly, some like to add a mixture of brown sugar and butter to the cream before coating the rolls, giving them a caramelized taste and a soft, gooey texture at the same time upon their completion.