Orange Sweet Rolls (Bread machine Recipe)

If you love cinnamon rolls but want something brighter, these orange sweet rolls with an ooey-gooey orange glaze are the perfect twist. I use my bread machine to prep the dough, so you still get that giant, bakery-style, pillow-soft roll with a much simpler process.

Perfect for brunch, holidays, or make-ahead mornings, these homemade orange sweet rolls come together with minimal effort and maximum flavor.

Ingredients

For the Dough

• 1 cup (240g) warm whole milk
• 1 whole egg plus 1 egg yolk
• 5 tbsp (70g) melted unsalted butter
• 4 cups (500g) bread flour
• 2 ¼ tsp (7g) or 1 packet of bread machine instant yeast
• 1 tsp (6g) table salt
• ¼ cup (50g) cane sugar (white will work too)

For the Filling

• 5 tbsp (70g) softened unsalted butter (very soft)
• ¾ cup (150g) cane sugar (white will work too)
• zest of half a navel orange

For the Orange Glaze

• 3 tbsp (42g) softened unsalted butter
• 1 cup (120g) powdered sugar
• 1 tsp (5g) vanilla extract
• zest of the other half navel orange
• 2 tablespoon (30g) juice squeezed from navel orange

Instructions

1. Add milk, eggs, butter to your bread machine, followed by the flour.
2. Making a well, add yeast to the middle. Then add salt on 1 side and sugar on another.
3. Set machine to dough cycle only which should take approximately 1 hour and 30 minutes.
4. In the last 15 minutes of your dough cycle, mix your filling. Add butter, sugar, and zest to a small bowl and combine until your filling is a paste consistency. Set aside.
5. Take your dough out of the machine and roll into a large rectangle, approximately 1/2 inch thick.
6. Spread your filling over the entire dough sheet. I find using my hands is much easier than a spatula because the filling can be thick and pill on the dough.
7. Cut dough into 8-9* even strips. I like to make ticks with my dough cutter (linked below) before cutting so I know it’s even.
8. Roll your dough and add to your baking dish spacing them so that they are almost touching. This way, when they bake, the sides will cook into each other giving you that pillow soft dough.
9. Let them rest on the counter for 45 minutes to 1 hour so that they puff up.
10. Preheat oven to 350º. Add a splash of whole milk on the rolls right before putting them in the oven. Bake for 20-25 minutes. You should be able to gently push down on the center piece of the roll and it will spring back up. If it stays down, it needs to bake longer. If it does not go down, take it out of the oven immediately and bake for 2-3 minutes less next time.
11. In the last 15 minutes of baking, make the icing by adding butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, zest and juice to a small bowl and mix together until it becomes a thick but runny icing.
12. Immediately glaze your sweet orange rolls after they come out of the oven.

*Prioritize how the roll fits into your pan. What you’re looking for is for them to barely touch each other and an inch or less of space from the sides of the pan. This will allow them to rise sideways into the pan and each other and remain soft. When I use smaller 8×8 square pans, I will do 3 rolls per pan so 9 is the best number. When I use my larger square pans, I’ll do 4 rolls per pan and just make 8 slightly larger rolls.

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