These slow cooker hot cross bun cinnamon rolls are perfect for a super delicious, no fuss, set-it-and-forget it Easter brunch recipe. The most amazing thing about these incredible slow cooker hot cross bun cinnamon rolls is that the dough is super easy to make and there is no long rising time, because the slow heat from your slow cooker (and the almighty Red Star yeast) does all the work for you!
So quick question here – did you know that Easter is in March this year? As in, Easter is less than two weeks away?! Um yeah, I had to do a double take when I saw that on my March calendar. The holiday completely snuck up on me.
As soon as I realized that the holiday was fast approaching, I thought back to last year when I made this awesome cinnamon sugar pecan challah bread. However, as I said last year, patience is a virtue I don’t whole-heartedly embrace when it comes to bread making.
I just want to whip up a dough and go, so to speak. I don’t want wait around for it to rise, I just don’t have time for that.
Still wanting to make something that reminded me of the Easter bread season (for some reason Easter is always synonymous with bread and baking for me) I decided to try something out. I wanted to see if I could come up with a bread type recipe, something that uses Red Star yeast (their yeasts make the most incredible bread, it’s the only brand of yeast my family and I use) but that wouldn’t require a lot of hands on time.
And that’s when it came to me – I should use my slow cooker to make something for Easter brunch. You see, that way, it would cook away while I was getting brunch ready and guests arrive, and then by the time it would be ready, everything else would be ready too (plus, it frees up precious oven space!) I also wanted to mix traditional flavors of hot cross buns with cinnamon rolls, so I added raisins and tweaked the dough of traditional cinnamon rolls a little.
The end result? AMAZING!
With minimal prep and hands-on time (I shared a step-by-step photo above) the end result is spectacular – hot crossed bun cinnamon rolls. They’re soft and sweet and everything you want for Easter brunch!
There you have it – an easy peasy bread recipe (<– yup, it was easy enough for even me, the one who normally doesn’t have the patience to wait around for bread baking). I also have to say, that like always, Red Star yeast worked wonders – I especially love their Platinum Instant Yeast which I used in this recipe (I also tested it with regular Red Star Yeast and it worked great too).
So you know that I’ll be making these for Easter brunch, I’d love to know, what are your plans for Easter? I melt the butter in the microwave and set aside before starting to make the dough. I use a bowl and wooden spoon, but you could also use a stand mixer with a dough attachment to make the dough.
Slow Cooker Hot Cross Bun Cinnamon Rolls
Ingredients
Instructions
Notes
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Dannii @ Hungry Healthy Happy says
Hot cross buns and cinnamon rolls? And done in a slow cooker? You are a genius! I haven’t had a hot cross bun yet this year, but I can’t wait.
Sweetphi says
Awe thank you so much, your comment totally made my day! These hot cross buns mixed with cinnamon rolls were seriously SO delish, and they reminded me of Easter (during which hot crossed buns and baked goods are mandatory, right? 😉 )
Little Cooking Tips says
Those are amazing Phi! We’ll bake them in the oven, as we don’t have a slow cooker, and we bet they’ll taste fantastic! We actually never used homemade dough for similar rolls, and this recipe is a great incentive to start making it at home:)
Thank you for the amazing idea dear!
xoxoxo
Sweetphi says
You’re so welcome for the recipe, and thank you for your lovely comment! While dough can totally be overwhelming to make, this one was super simple and the flavors were SO good 🙂
shawnna griffin says
hey girl these look oh so yummy! Happy Easter! My husband and I will be going to church and I ‘m not sure what else we’ll be doing!
Sweetphi says
Happy Easter to you too! Your Easter Sunday sounds lovely! And I’m so glad you think these look yummy, I’m totally including them on my Easter menu 🙂
Sarah says
These look perfect! Love your technique in the slow cooker 🙂 I have to confess I’ve never made hot crossed buns or cinnamon rolls… maybe this will be my first foray!
Sweetphi says
Wait…hold the phone…you’ve never made hot crossed buns or cinnamon rolls ?!? Girl, you MUST try them, homemade is so incredible! And this method of the slow cooker is totally the way to go because it doesn’t involve any crazy long rise time or kneading, it’s super easy and the end result is amazing!
Shena says
Do you think this would work with gluten free flour?
Sweetphi says
I do think it would work with gluten free flour 🙂
Tanya says
Do you think the dough (with filling) can be refrigerated or froze before putting in the slow cooker? I would love to make these for a camping breakfast but would want to prep them before we leave and make them Sunday a.m Thanks!
Sweetphi says
Yes, that would work well i think! I’d love to know how it turns out for you.
Jo says
I tried this with gluten free flour and it didn’t turn out. I’m not expert baker so I’ll take responsibility for my mistake lol with gluten free flour the dough was very dry and crumbly, it would not form a nice sticky ball. I think to correct this you might have to add an extra egg. I did throw it in the slow cooker 2hrs and eat it in spite of its dryness, the bread tastes good. I do believe Phi’s time estimations are quite off: it takes more like an hour to prep this.
Sweetphi says
Oh my goodness, that definitely sounds like something went wrong with the gluten free flour, sorry to hear it didn’t turn out for you. I’ve made this many times and have had readers make this with great results…but all with all-purpose flour, so I’m not sure what went wrong.