Once summer starts, my family maintains a constant pile of peaches on the kitchen countertop and replenishes the supply anytime we pull out four or five to bake a pie. We easily eat two or three pies every week. Heck, we’ve even gone through an entire one in a single night with only three people!
While Mom swoons over the shortbread crust (just pat it into the pie pan—no rolling pin required!), I lust over the filling and topping. Sweet juicy peaches with a hint of almond extract. A generous crumble of butter, flour, and brown sugar. Mix them together and OH MY GOODNESS I’d eat that for breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day of my life! (Or at least every day of the summer.)
But… I’m not sure if I’m allowed to share her recipe with you. It’s been our family’s secret dessert weapon for this long, and I might get in trouble if I spill the peaches beans!
So instead, I took my two favorite parts—the peaches and crumble—and put them into cinnamon rolls! Now I can eat my “peach pie” for breakfast without an ounce of guilt.
Our pile of peaches just started shrinking twice as fast!
These taste best when still warm! To reheat, place one roll in the microwave for 10-13 seconds.
- To prepare the dough, combine the water, yeast, and 2 teaspoons of granulated sugar in a large bowl. Let it sit for 10 minutes, or until frothy. Stir in the remaining sugar, salt, vanilla, and oil. Add in the flour ½ cup at a time, until a sticky dough forms (about 2½ cups, depending on weather and humidity).
- Turn the dough out onto a well-floured surface, and knead for 2-4 minutes, adding additional flour as necessary, or until the dough springs back when you press your index finger into it. Lightly coat a large bowl with nonstick cooking spray. Shape the dough into a ball, and roll around in the bowl until coated with the spray. Let the dough rest while you prepare the filling.
- To prepare the filling, skin and dice the peaches. Mix together with the brown sugar, cinnamon, and almond extract in a small bowl.
- Lightly coat two 9” cake pans with nonstick cooking spray.
- Turn the dough out onto a clean, well-floured surface. Roll into a 12” x 15” rectangle. Spread the filling across the dough, leaving a 1” border on the two longer sides. Roll up, starting from one of the longer sides, and slice into 12 sections. Place 6 cinnamon rolls into each pie pan, putting 1 in the center and the other 5 around the edge. Lightly coat the tops with nonstick cooking spray.
- Place the cake pans in a warm, draft-free spot to rise. Lay a sheet of wax paper over the top, and place a clean towel on top of the wax paper. (See Note.) Let the rolls rise for 1½ hours.
- Preheat the oven to 400°.
- To prepare the topping, combine the flour, sugar, and cinnamon in a small bowl. Cut in the butter using the back of a fork until the mixture resembles coarse sand. Carefully remove the towel and wax paper from the rising rolls, and sprinkle with the topping. Bake at 400° for 14-16 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool in the pan for at least 20 minutes before serving to allow the juices to set.
Notes: These rolls are meant to be freeform! The filling is messier than traditional ones, and the peach juice may make it hard to maintain the roll shape as you place them in the pan. But I promise that they’re sweet summer taste is worth the effort!
Dice the peaches into fairly small pieces. This makes it easier to cut the roll into 12 segments in Step 5 without as much filling falling out. One reader also suggested adding 1 teaspoon of cornstarch to the peach filling to help their juices thicken during baking.
In Step 5, you lightly coat the tops with nonstick spray to prevent the wax paper from sticking to the rolls during their rise. Alternatively, you could use deep-dish 9” pans or springform 9” pans and just use the towel. The taller sides of these pans will prevent the rolls from sticking to the towel as they rise.
P.S. You can now buy copies of my Table for Two cookbook as gifts! They’re available here for only $3.99!
Nice recipe. Thank you.
My pleasure Liz!
Can these be made ahead of time and baked the next day? I’m not sure if that would mess up the yeast…
To be honest, I haven’t tried. If you do, I’d suggest sticking the pans with the raw cinnamon rolls in the fridge overnight (before letting them rise in the pans) covered in plastic wrap — or a hairnet, if your pan has shallow sides. (Funny tip, but works really well!) Then just pull them out 1-2 hours before baking to bring them to room temperature and let them rise a bit more. Otherwise, you could easily bake them the night before and simply reheat in the morning. That’s what I tend to do because I’m usually not fully awake when my stomach wants breakfast! 😉 I’d love to hear what you try and how it turns out for you Jenn!
Right now I am letting my rolls rise, and I wanted to say (while I know the delicious peaches are the point of the recipe) these would work really well with sliced tart apple, cinnamon, ground ginger and vanilla as filling. I had to do that with two of my rolls (I didn’t have enough filling for them, panic!!) and I have a really good feeling (filling) about it. By the way I am a huge fan
Thanks Emma! I think your idea of apples and spices is absolutely fabulous. It sounds perfect for fall with all of those cozy flavors! 🙂 I really hope you enjoy the rolls!
Could use canned peaches rather than fresh peaches?
Yes! Peaches canned in 100% juice that have been thorough drained will work just fine. I hope you enjoy the rolls Andrea!