cinnamon roll cheesecake

I first made this last fall, pre-blog, for my dad's birthday. My husband said it was the best thing he's ever had, or something to that effect. Then I made it again for Christmas. I was asked for the recipe so many times, that the idea of starting a blog slowly started to form in my head.

It's a recipe that has multiple components, but comes together really easily. I'm a lazy baker, and I didn't have any trouble putting this cake together after dinner, for my husband's birthday the next day.

You start by baking the cinnamon roll batter: creaming butter and sugar, adding an egg, milk and some vanilla. Dry ingredients go in, the half of the batter gets spread in a springform pan, while the rest hangs out until later.

After washing out the standmixer bowl, you make the cheesecake filling, by creaming the usual suspects together. The cheesecake filling gets poured over the cinnamon roll batter.

Next, melted butter, brown sugar and cinnamon get combined, and dropped by spoonfuls onto the cheesecake, then swirled in the batter with a knife. And at last, the rest of the cinnamon roll batter gets dropped by spoonfuls onto the cheesecake.

After being baked and chilled, a quick icing made out of more cream cheese gets artfully drizzled on the cake.

This cake is so good! My husband decided that this could be his birthday cake every year.

Peabody's Cinnamon Roll Cheesecake with Cream Cheese Frosting
recipe from the culinary concoctions of peabody

Cinnamon Roll Batter:
2/3 cup white sugar
¼ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 egg, at room temperature
½ cup whole milk, at room temperature
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt

Cheesecake filling:
2 pkg. (8 oz. each) cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp vanilla extract
2 tbsp flour
3 eggs, at room temperature

Cinnamon Filling:
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 cup brown sugar
3 tbsp cinnamon

Cream Cheese Frosting:
2 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
3 tbsp unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp vanilla
1 cup powdered sugar
milk (if needed to thin frosting)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Grease a 9-inch springform pan.

Cinnamon Roll Batter:

Using a stand mixer with a paddle attachment cream together the butter and sugar for 3 minutes, until light and fluffy.

Add egg, milk, and vanilla. Beat for another minute. Scrape down bowl.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Combine the sifted and creamed ingredients together. Mix on low speed until throughly combined.

Spread half of the batter in a thin layer onto the bottom of the springform pan.

For the Cheesecake Filling:

Using a stand mixer (and a clean bowl) fitted with paddle attachment, beat cream cheese and sugar for 2 minutes on medium-high speed.

Add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition.

Add the vanilla and flour and beat for another minute.

Pour all of the cheesecake batter on top of the cinnamon roll batter in the springform pan.

Cinnamon Filling:

In a small bowl, combine the melted butter, cinnamon, and brown sugar. Mix until thoroughly combined.

Drop spoonfuls of the cinnamon filling over the entire top of the cheesecake. Swirl in the batter with a butter knife.

Take the rest of the cinnamon roll batter and drop spoonfuls over the entire top of cheesecake. Push them down gently in the cheesecake batter.

Bake for about 50-55 minutes, cake will be puffy and lightly browned. Let chill for 20 minutes at room temperature and then cover and move to fridge for 4 hours. Remove cake and let it warm up to room temperature just a bit. Frost with Cream Cheese Frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting:

Using a stand mixer (and a clean bowl) with paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese and butter together for 2 minutes. Add remaining ingredients and beat until desired consistency is reached. If too thick, thin out with milk.

What I love about this cheesecake, is it doesn't have to look perfect. Mine is lumpy, and unevenly brown, has a huge crack in the middle of it, but doesn't matter! Drizzle on the icing, and you're good to go! No one is going to complain!

The only thing with this particular cake, is that I didn't swirl it well enough, so I got chunks of cinnamon sugar in it... still good, but it would have been better if the cinnamon was more evenly distributed. So swirl, swirl, swirl!