Give Cinnamon Rolls The Banana Bread Treatment And Thank Us Later

It's hard to imagine a way to make warm, gooey homemade cinnamon rolls better than they already are — but we have an idea to make it happen. When you can't decide whether you want to whip up a batch of cinnamon rolls or a loaf of banana bread — why not do both? There's quite an easy way to give the banana bread treatment to those cinnamon rolls, and it only requires a couple of extra ingredients. 

All you'll need is a solid recipe, like our easy cinnamon rolls, to start. Then, mashed bananas and walnuts are the only two supplemental ingredients you'll really need to give it this delicious twist. The mashed bananas are quite obvious because they're the core of banana bread. It's also a surefire way to get rid of those bananas that have been on the counter for too long. Many banana bread recipes hinge on the walnuts, hence the suggestion, but you could swap them for what's already in the kitchen (more about that later).

When you have your go-to cinnamon roll recipe, mashed bananas, and walnuts ready to go, it's not too much more work to fuse the dishes together. According to some recipes, it's best to add the mashed bananas to the other wet ingredients, like vanilla extract and eggs. Like many other baked goods, you'll fold in the dry ingredients into the wet. The walnuts are usually added to the cinnamon filling that goes into the middle of the cinnamon rolls, but you could toss them into the dry ingredients, too. Another option is to add a garnish of chopped walnuts on top of the icing for a final touch of crunch.

Bananas and walnuts are not the only way to give the banana bread treatment to cinnamon rolls. Some versions of banana walnut bread have chocolate chips, so you could fold in some milk or dark chocolate into the cinnamon roll batter or filling if that's what you're craving. If you don't have walnuts, try pecans or almonds instead. Or, add a streusel topping to your cinnamon rolls, like your go-to banana bread recipe might include. For more help, check out these tips almost everyone makes when baking cinnamon rolls before you start.