Delicious cinnamon rolls are a warm and gooey indulgence, filled with cinnamon sugar and topped with sweet icing. However, making them from scratch can be time-consuming and messy. That’s where store-bought cinnamon rolls come in handy, offering a quick and easy solution. Simply pop them out of the tube, place them in a pan, and in 20 minutes or less, you’ll have a delightful treat to enjoy.
Pillsbury is a well-known brand for refrigerated cinnamon rolls, but there are other options such as Walmart’s Great Value and Annie’s Homemade. To find out which brand is best, we tested eight cinnamon rolls from six different brands and ranked them from worst to best.
Hill Country Fare Cinnamon Rolls from H-E-B’s house brand ranked lowest. The icing was overly sweet with an artificial vanilla taste, and the rolls seemed undercooked and doughy. Pillsbury’s Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing came in seventh place, with a dense texture and a lack of cinnamon sugar. The icing required spreading with a knife, which was less convenient than other brands’ squeeze packets.
Great Value Original Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Icing from Walmart surprised us with its smooth icing and spicy cinnamon flavor. The dough was buttery but some found it a bit bland. Great Value’s Original Cinnamon Rolls with Icing, in fourth place, had a balanced sugar and vanilla flavor, reminiscent of a glazed doughnut.
In third place were Trader Joe’s Jumbo Cinnamon Rolls, offering a generous portion but lacking the rich flavor expected from a cinnamon roll. Stay tuned for the remaining rankings in the taste test.
Is bigger better when it comes to cinnamon rolls? According to the results of our taste test, the answer is a resounding yes. In our evaluation, all three of the larger refrigerated cinnamon rolls we sampled ended up at the top of the ranking. While Trader Joe’s offering was deemed the least impressive, it still managed to delight our taste buds.
Trader Joe’s cinnamon roll featured a thinner icing compared to the other samples, reminiscent of the type you might use to ice sugar cookies. The flavor profile consisted of confectioner’s sugar with subtle notes of butter and vanilla, without the overpowering artificial taste that can sometimes plague cheaper cinnamon rolls. Despite a seemingly generous amount of cinnamon sugar in the spirals, the dough fell short in terms of flavor, appearing somewhat bland and slightly on the pasty side, with an excessive buttery quality that didn’t quite hit the mark for our panel of tasters.
In the battle of organic cinnamon rolls, two brands emerged victorious, each offering a delectable experience with slight nuances setting them apart.
Immaculate Organic Cinnamon Rolls, boasting 330 calories, 12 grams of fat, and 24 grams of sugar, captivated our taste buds. Purchased from Whole Foods, this brand raised initial skepticism due to the unappealing appearance of its off-white, almost wallpaper-paste-like icing, which was notably runny. However, once the icing was drizzled over the fat, baked spirals generously coated with cinnamon sugar, the transformation was remarkable. The flaky and buttery dough delivered a delightful combination of sweetness and spice that lingered pleasantly, showcasing an equally enjoyable taste whether served fresh from the oven or chilled.
Sharing the top spot with Immaculate Organic Cinnamon Rolls is Annie’s Organic Cinnamon Rolls, offering the same nutritional breakdown as its counterpart. Strikingly similar to the Immaculate brand, this product made it challenging for our discerning panel to distinguish any significant differences. Owned by General Mills, both brands shared similarities that were difficult to overlook. Despite the unattractive appearance of the icing, it magically metamorphosed into a sweet topping infused with hints of maple and vanilla, adding to the overall appeal of the rolls. Tender, buttery, and irresistibly gooey, the rolls beckoned to be pulled apart, allowing the delectable goodness to ooze between your fingers, offering a bakery-like experience that left our taste buds craving more.
In conclusion, our taste test highlighted the superiority of larger refrigerated cinnamon rolls, with organic options from Immaculate and Annie’s standing out as top contenders. Both brands delivered on flavor, texture, and overall satisfaction, showcasing that when it comes to cinnamon rolls, bigger can indeed be better.
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This article was initially featured on Cheapism.
