The Sweet Morning Snack You Should Make With Boxed Cake Mix

There is a certain sacredness to a morning breakfast routine, no matter how you do it. But whether it is a cup of coffee or a serving of overnight oats that kickstarts your day, surely we agree that it is always good to mix things up every now and then. What better way to do that than with a sweet snack like a cinnamon roll? Luckily, one of the core ingredients for such a treat likely already waits in your pantry and can make the process much easier: boxed cake mix. As it turns out, boxed cake mix has many non-cake uses that can make your life more delicious, and its use in crafting cinnamon rolls stands out from the crowd because of its convenience.  

Take a chance on these cake mix cinnamon rolls and you might never go back to your regular recipe. To get started, make sure you have active dry yeast, warm water, cake mix, and all purpose flour ready for the cinnamon roll dough. You'll also want brown sugar, cinnamon, salt, butter, and frosting for filling and topping the sweets. While you'll still have to do a bit of waiting to let the yeast do its rising, the cake mix makes assembling the dough supremely easy. Reaching for different flavor varieties could also lend unique character to your cinnamon rolls, whether you use classic red velvet, rich chocolate, or whimsical sprinkle-flecked mix.

After letting a package of active dry yeast dissolve into a cup of warm water, stir in a box of cake mix and an extra 2 ½ cups of all purpose flour. Be sure all of the ingredients mix thoroughly into a cohesive dough, but take care not to knead or overwork it. Otherwise, it can become sticky or even tough due to overdeveloping the gluten. Cover and let the dough rise for just over an hour, then deflate it and move it to a flour-dusted surface.

Roll the dough into a rectangle (12 by 16 inches is a good goal here). Brush on a mix of brown sugar, cinnamon, salt, and butter — you may wish to start with 1.5 cups brown sugar, a hearty 3 tablespoons of cinnamon, a pinch of salt, and up to two sticks of room temperature butter, leaving about ¼ inch bare on the edges all around. Now your cinnamon-y dough is ready to tightly roll into a log — or pack into the waffle maker! If you're rolling, cut the dough into equal pieces and gently place the rolls in a butter-greased baking pan, cover, and let them rise again for about half an hour before baking at 350 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes. After cooling, coat the cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting and serve.