To Bake The Best Brioche Cinnamon Rolls, Follow This Butter Ratio

Brioche is a quite versatile dough. It can be used for making donuts, breads, French toast (or Tasting Table's chocolate brioche French toast), or in this case, decadent homemade cinnamon rolls. But the degree to which you enrich the dough with butter greatly depends on what exactly you want to make with your brioche. Many brioche recipes, such as traditional French brioche, call for up to 80% butter, meaning you'll use far more butter than flour when mixing and kneading the ingredients together. Other recipes need far less — including brioche used to make cinnamon rolls.

For brioche cinnamon rolls, you need a scant 25% butter to 75% flour or a 1:4 ratio. Brioche cinnamon rolls have more butter added to the formed dough to layer in the cinnamon filling. By using less butter initially, you'll get a soft but sturdy dough that can hold up against the sugar and spice of the filling without overpowering the additional flavors.

Why do some brioche recipes need more or less butter? It's all about the texture and flavor of the bread. Standalone brioche bread doesn't have any additional flavors added to the dough or as a filling. This means the buttery flavor can shine through. As for the role of fat in the texture of brioche, it determines the density of the baked good. The more butter added to the brioche dough, the softer and lighter it will be. While this is delicious for a slice of bread, having bread that's too pillowy soft isn't ideal for cinnamon rolls. The brioche needs enough structure to avoid falling apart with the extra weight of the filling — especially if it includes chopped nuts. 

With a little intel on using various butter-to-flour ratios for different brioche applications, you can choose how to best enrich your dough. But no matter what the ratio might be, remember to always add the butter in last when making brioche. With these tips, you can easily make some of the best-tasting cinnamon rolls.