Ditch The Baking Pan — Make Cinnamon Rolls Like Cracker Barrel Using This

When it comes to eating dessert for breakfast, there is no better choice than cinnamon rolls. After all, who can resist the temptation of gooey, sugary goodness curled into soft, aromatic dough draped in crackly icing? Very few people indeed, especially when the rolls are perfectly baked with a syrupy interior and lightly crisp exterior, a feat Cracker Barrel has perfected with their rustic take on serving cinnamon rolls in a cast-iron skillet. 

Ordinary metal baking pans can heat up very fast, causing the outside of your cinnamon buns to brown or even scorch before the inside is sufficiently baked. Cast-iron skillets, on the other hand, heat more slowly and hold enough heat to turn the outer layers golden brown while the inside becomes soft, syrupy, and perfectly cooked.

The best part is that this hack works well with both canned cinnamon rolls and those made from scratch. Just be sure to choose a high-quality brand of the canned stuff for the best flavor, such as Annie's organic canned cinnamon rolls.

Cast iron's heat retention is not only great for caramelization and beautifully baked pastry spirals, but can also help create gooey, rich cinnamon roll filling. You can easily take advantage of this by drizzling canned cinnamon rolls with heavy cream to make them taste homemade, as the cast iron will help slowly infuse the dough with the extra fatty moisture to create a softer, chewier roll. It will also capture the sugar and butter that collect in the bottom of the pan, creating a sticky, cinnamon-infused syrup.

To take full advantage of this aspect of baking with cast iron, when your cinnamon rolls are ready, flip them out onto a warmed serving platter so the gooey stuff streams back over and down into the rolls. Of course, you don't have to stop at brown sugar and cinnamon. It's also fairly easy to add fresh berries and fruit jams to your cinnamon rolls, so that pool of bubbly goodness in the bottom of the skillet is infused with tangy blueberries, tart raspberries, or whatever fruit your heart desires.

This is also the perfect vessel for lining with slices of apples, pears, peaches, or plums and sprinkling them with brown sugar and dots of butter before tucking the cinnamon rolls into place to make an upside-down cinnamon roll cake. The idea is that the fruit caramelizes under the blanket of cinnamon rolls, with the pastry and the bubbly fruit also infusing each other with flavor.