Store-Bought Pancake Mix Is Your Shortcut For Easy, Homemade Cinnamon Rolls

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There is something irresistible about homemade cinnamon rolls. Perhaps it's the sweet aroma of cinnamon permeating the air, or maybe it's the soft pillowy dough that perfectly delivers the sweet cinnamon taste and carries that creamy icing to our lips. More likely, it's the combination of all of the above. But many home bakers are intimidated by the work involved, especially if a quick-and-easy breakfast is in order. Thankfully, store-bought pancake mix is the perfect shortcut to make quick-and-easy, not to mention delicious, homemade cinnamon rolls any day of the week.

Store-bought pancake mix (Bisquick is an ideal choice) is an easy way to whip up a batch of fresh pancakes, but it also works like a charm for cinnamon rolls. For your dough, just mix 2 ¼ cups pancake mix with ⅔ cup of milk, 2 tablespoons of granulated sugar, and 2 tablespoons of melted butter. There is no yeast involved, so no need to get up super early on a weekday to wait for the dough to rise. Simply mix your batter together, roll it up with your sweet and buttery cinnamon filling, and get to baking. It's almost as easy as making a one-pan breakfast sandwich, and there are still plenty of other creative uses for the rest of the pancake mix, from pizza crust to corn dogs and, of course, the obvious choice, pancakes.

You can save boring canned cinnamon rolls by employing a few tricks of the trade, but that canned flavor will always be hiding underneath the fancy upgrades. Luckily, making them from scratch with pancake mix makes things super easy, and you can still pull some extra tricks to take them from good to great. Start with the bottom of the pan — simply grease the bottom of the pan with plenty of butter and sprinkle that with brown sugar, then place your rolls in the pan to bake them. Once they're done baking, turn them out of the pan and let that buttery, sugary goodness drip down into your fresh baked rolls.

Bacon makes everything better, and that goes for cinnamon rolls, too. Give them a boost of flavor by topping them with bacon bits before sticking them in the oven — and you can really play up the flavor of the pancake mix in your dough by using maple flavored bacon for this hack. You can enjoy cinnamon rolls ay time of day, but by incorporating all these breakfast flavors, you'll have a perfect breakfast pastry on your hands.

You can also play with the texture of your cinnamon rolls by chopping and toasting some nuts, then sprinkling them on top before tossing them in the oven. The toasted nuts will add a bit of protein and a whole lot of crunch to your otherwise soft and tender cinnamon rolls.