I learned about resurrection rolls last year when volunteering with the children’s ministry at our church. Our director suggested that someone from our group make them to serve as part of the children’s Easter service and activities.
Unfortunately, last year, these seemed wholly unappetizing because last year at Easter, I was pregnant with Little Miss. And unfortunately, when I am pregnant, I don’t have any cravings. Rather, I have all of the aversions. And the strongest aversion I had when pregnant with both Little Mister and with Little Miss was to cinnamon.
I couldn’t stand the sight of cinnamon – ground or sticks. I couldn’t stand the smell, especially when baked. The mere idea of it would cause me to gag. This made being a baker – where two of our best selling breads were cinnamon-based – incredibly difficult. Luckily, I had a supportive husband who helped with baking so that I could just try and make it through the smell.
Needless to say, one of the main ingredients of resurrection rolls is cinnamon. Even after giving birth, the aversion has continued but on a slightly lesser scale. So when we decided to make resurrection rolls this year, I feared that it would make me gag, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy them, and they would just be left sitting there.
All of my fears were for naught.
I looked through a couple of different recipes for the resurrection rolls as there are a ton of different versions out there. There is even one version that won the Pillsbury Bakeoff challenge years ago, but was published by a secular name. The basic premise is the same in all of them, though. I took my baking knowledge, the general recipes from all of them, and my acceptance that I needed to cut back on the cinnamon or else they would be inedible, and created the recipe you find below.
A few tips to keep in mind to keep yourself sane during this activity:
- Make sure that the melted butter has cooled completely prior to starting. If it isn’t cooled, then it will start to melt the marshmallows during the process and then everything will become an ooey gooey mess.
- Lay down parchment paper underneath the rolls prior to baking. Things are bound to get messy as the marshmallows melt. This will make it easier to get the rolls off the sheet.
- Transfer the rolls from the parchment to a plate while they are still warm. Once they cool, whatever sugar leaked out will harden and become a sticky mess trying to get them off. They have a high potential to fall apart at that point.
- Keep a paper towel nearby to clean your hands occasionally. If too much butter gets on the crescent roll while you are trying to roll and seal it, it will not stick to itself.
- Little hands work best in the rolling in the cinnamon part, so that is the perfect job for them!
- If you mess up like I did and sprinkle cinnamon sugar on before putting them in the over, it’s ok. It won’t mess them up! But after is definitely better.
Ingredients and Supplies:
- Large marshmallows (you will need 12-16 depending on the size of your Pillsbury can and how many extras you plan to eat in the process)
- 2 Cans of Pillsbury crescent rolls (we used the butter flakey kind, but original would work, too)
- ½ Cup (or one stick) of Butter, melted
- 1 ½ Tablespoons of cinnamon
- Heaping ¼ Cup of Sugar
- 2 Sheets of parchment
- Cookie/Baking sheet
- 2 Bowls (one for melted butter, one for the cinnamon sugar)
Directions:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine sugar and cinnamon in one bowl.
3. Unroll crescent roll dough and separate the triangles along the perforations. Line the unrolled dough in lines along the parchment paper.
4. Roll a marshmallow in the melted butter and then roll in the cinnamon sugar to coat. Once coated, lay the marshmallow in the center of the large side of the crescent roll dough.
5. Roll up the dough as if making a crescent roll, covering the marshmallow as you go. Make sure that the marshmallow is completely covered and pinching the sides closed as you go.
6. Repeat steps 4 and 5 until all rolls have a marshmallow in them.
7. Place the rolls on the parchment and then on a cookie or baking sheet. We were able to fit 16 rolls on one sheet, but 10-12 might have been better. They do not expand much, so you can fit quite a few on one sheet without worry.
8. Bake for about 12 minutes.
9. Upon removing the rolls from the oven, brush or drizzle some melted butter and sprinkle with some of the remaining cinnamon sugar.
10. Enjoy!
So let’s talk about what makes these beauties resurrection rolls and why they are so important to the Easter story.
When you make the rolls, you are placing a marshmallow in each. But after baking, the marshmallow disappears and you are left with an empty roll on the inside, just like Jesus’s tomb after he was resurrected!
I spent some time talking about the Easter story with Little Mister as we made the rolls, going over how Jesus died for us, that he was placed in the tomb, and asking what he remembered happened on the third day after Jesus died.
When he bit into the roll, he was surprised there was no marshmallow anymore! That was when I reinforced that, like the marshmallow, Jesus was no longer in the tomb because He had risen.
It’s a wonderfully tasty demonstration of the Easter story and a great way to add some delicious fun to your Easter brunch.
I hope you enjoy making these with your little ones and using them to tell the Easter story this coming weekend.