Use Cream Cheese Frosting To Get The Most Flavor Out Of Your Cinnamon Rolls

When you bake up a fresh batch of warm cinnamon rolls, finishing the pastries off with a creamy frosting can be the perfect way to start your morning off in a sweet way. In particular, cream cheese frosting is a great go-to topper for breakfast treats.

The slightly tangy flavor of cream cheese blends with butter and sugar to create a sweet topping while adding an extra flavor element. The added flavor profile makes it the perfect companion to cinnamon rolls, thanks to its contrast with the sweet, lightly spiced filling in the pastries. The differentiation can even bring out the cinnamon sugar filling, making the roll itself taste even better.

Even expert bakers like Cinnabon and King Arthur Baking recommend the tangier frosting when it comes to topping off the pastries. If you don't have the time to bake up some treats completely from scratch, you can grab a can of ready-to-bake cinnamon rolls, and simply add the cream cheese frosting (either from a can or homemade).

As it turns out, there may even be a scientific reason behind why people like cream cheese frosting paired with cinnamon rolls so much. As we get older, our taste buds develop more, and we can appreciate foods and flavors we may have rejected in our youth. In addition to those taste preferences changing, the amount of taste buds in our mouths can actually decrease in number, or function less-than-perfectly — particularly when we hit our 40s and 50s.

Sweet things, in particular, can be affected by this change in taste, so we may be less receptive to sugary snacks. As we find ourselves craving more complex flavors in our sweets to compensate for these taste changes, we may wind up wanting something other than plain old chocolate or vanilla frostings. Though sweet vanilla icing may be a satisfactory topping for cinnamon rolls, the more tart cream cheese frosting provides some much-needed flavor contrast. 

Even outside of cinnamon rolls, the flavors of cinnamon and cream cheese pair well together. While some people might opt to spread cream cheese on their cinnamon bagels, others might even buy a brown sugar cinnamon-flavored cream cheese spread. But if you're craving something extra sweet to start off the morning, cinnamon rolls are the way to go.

If you're making dessert for a party, you could try serving cream cheese frosting to create a dessert dip — thinned out with some milk, if it's a little too thick to scoop up. You can then dip any number of desserts or fruit covered in cinnamon and sugar — even churros to satisfy that sweet spiced and tangy craving.

Whether you mix up some cream cheese frosting completely from scratch or grab a canister of your favorite creamy frosting from the grocery store, there's one clear winner when it comes to choosing the right topping for your cinnamon rolls.