Why You Should Never Use Melted Butter In Cinnamon Roll Filling

Homemade cinnamon rolls are one of life's greatest pleasures — not only are they absolutely delicious, but they can also be fun to make. In order to make the best cinnamon rolls possible, there are a few tips that you can keep in mind — including one involving the butter for the cinnamon roll filling.

As it turns out, when recipes for homemade cinnamon rolls call for "softened butter" in the cinnamon roll filling, it's actually very important to stick to softened butter and not use melted butter. It can definitely be tempting to just stick that butter in the microwave if you've been storing it in the fridge, which can easily lead to accidentally melting it, but ensuring that your butter is softened will make all the difference: It will make it easier to evenly spread the filling on top of the dough. To make sure that your butter is soft, you can set a reminder to take it out of the fridge the morning that you plan to make the cinnamon rolls. Or, if you need other ways to get the job done, you can consult our list of the 11 best ways to soften butter.

Now that we've got the softened butter situation covered, you may be wondering: what are other tips to keep in mind to make the best possible cinnamon rolls?

To make the best possible batch, you want to avoid some common mistakes that you may be making with cinnamon rolls. For example, just like you need the butter to be at room temperature, the eggs should also be at room temperature — a cold egg may affect the texture of the dough, which we want to avoid. If you forget to take your eggs out an hour or so ahead of time, then you can put them in a bowl filled with warm water to get them to room temperature quickly.

Later in the process, you don't want to overpack the dough with the filling — which can certainly be tempting, given how delicious that cinnamon filling is — but you want to leave a bit of a gap between the filling and the edge of the dough to make sure that the filling doesn't leak out during the baking process. On a similar note, you also don't want to roll the dough up too tightly.

As for the icing, you may be tempted to just use canned icing instead of making your own, but they won't taste nearly as good as if you made your own icing. Plus, you can make the icing while the cinnamon rolls are baking in the oven, so it won't even take up any extra time. Also, before you put that icing on, make sure you let the cinnamon rolls cool.