Salted Caramel Apple Cinnamon Rolls (Made with Store-Bought Pizza Dough!)
If you like taking shortcuts and buying things pre-made, then you will eat this UP. Literally.
This salted caramel apple roll recipe is the ULTIMATE Fall comfort food hack. The main hack here is that we are using pre-made pizza crust instead of making our own dough. This gives us more time to focus on our sexy, divine salted caramel apple filling, which is the STAR of the show. In this recipe, I do make the caramel from scratch, but if that’s not for you I understand. If you really don’t even want to try making caramel on your own…I see you and I understand you. You could go with 1 cup of store-bought pre-made caramel sauce as the base of your filling instead of making your own. I’ll let you decide. I won’t judge you either way.
Let’s talk about the dough. I used the Pillsbury pizza crust in the can, but you can go with any other pizza dough. I can’t promise they will work exactly the same, but they should if they are classic yeast pizza crusts.
You can also totally make your own cinnamon roll dough (like the yeast-free dough I made for these brown butter sticky rolls) and just use the filling recipe here! It will taste AMAZING. No matter what you do (unless you burn your caramel or use rotten apples) these will sweep you off your feet. I can’t wait to see what you think!
Let’s get the party started.
Salted Caramel Sauce
Ingredients
- 1 cup granulated white sugar
- 2/3 cup room temp water
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 3 tbsp unsalted butter at room temp
- 1 tsp salt plus more to taste if needed
Instructions
- Combine the sugar and water in a clean sauce pan (don't put it on the stove yet.) Mix together the sugar and the water until fully combined and the sugar is dissolved as much as possible.
- Put the sauce pan with the sugar water onto the burner on medium heat. While watching diligently and not stirring at all (very important not to stir, because it will cause sugar crystals to form,) let the mixture cook for 7-10 minutes. First, the mixture should begin to steam as the water cooks off. Once the water is cooked off, a clear syrupy sugar mixture should begin to bubble in the pan without the steam.
- When you see the silky syrup form, stand by with a whisk and the rest of your ingredients. This next part happens fast! Let the syrup continue to cook until you see it begin to turn light amber in color. Once the sugar mixture smells sweet and slightly bitter/buttery, and the color is a light/medium amber, remove the pan from the heat immediately! Do not let the mixture get too dark (dark brown/deep amber red) in color because that means it will have a burnt bitterness to it.
- Pour the heavy cream into the pan and whisk until the bubbles settle (about 30 seconds - 1 minute.) Then, add the butter and salt, then continue to whisk until fully combined. Let this mixture sit for 10 minutes to thicken and cool.
- After 10 minutes or so, dip a tasting spoon into the cooled caramel and wave your hand over it to make sure it doesn't feel too hot to taste. If it feels like a neutral temperature, give it a taste and adjust the salt levels accordingly, if needed. Enjoy immediately or jar and keep in the fridge for up to 2 weeks.
Salted Caramel Apple Cinnamon Rolls (Made with Store-Bought Pizza Dough!)
Equipment
- Dental floss (optional -- no, I'm not kidding lol floss is helpful for cutting the cinnamon rolls.)
Ingredients
- 1 can pre-made raw yeast pizza dough
- 1 large honey crisp apple finely chopped
- 1/2 cup pecans coarsely chopped
- 1 1/4 cups salted caramel sauce
Instructions
- Preheat the oven according to the pizza dough instructions.
- Put the chopped apple into a cheese cloth or a makeshift cheesecloth made with paper towels. Strain as much water out of the apples as possible. This is optional, but the first time I made these, I noticed the apples made the caramel filling a little watery. This didn't affect the final taste, but it did affect how easy it was to roll up the cinnamon rolls since they got wet.
- In a bowl, combine half of the salted caramel sauce with your chopped apple and pecans. Sprinkle some cinnamon to taste and stir until combined.
- With a spoon, spread one generous layer of salted caramel apple filling onto the dough, leaving about a 1 inch border around the edges. Keep any leftover apple filling for topping.
- Take the long side of the dough and begin to tightly roll it towards the other end, while sandwiching some of that caramel apple filling between each layer of dough. Make sure the roll is as tight as possible, but be delicate since the yeast dough is delicate. Roll until you've reached the end and press to seal the edge a bit. Now take a knife and lightly mark even sizes for where you want to cut the rolls. Take a long piece of dental floss (you can also use a knife, but dental floss works like a charm.) Slide the middle of the dental floss underneath the log of dough. Bring the ends together and cross around the dough until the floss slides through and cuts the dough into a perfect brown butter roll. Repeat with all of the rolls!
- Place the rolls into a buttered oven-safe skillet or pan. Bake 20-30 minutes, or according to package instructions + 10 minutes or so, until lightly golden brown on top.
- When the rolls are done, drizzle more salted caramel on top along with any leftover salted caramel apple filling. Enjoy!!
Made these for Halloween and I’m obsessed
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