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If you want to make cinnamon rolls for a crowd for a breakfast buffet or a potluck brunch at work, there are a few ways that you can plan ahead to cut down on the last-minute work. From freezing cinnamon rolls before baking, to prepping them fresh the day before, you’ll be able to serve a crowd-pleasing treat without a lot of stress.
How many cinnamon rolls will you need?
Depending on how much food you’ll have at your event, you might need to adjust your cinnamon roll serving counts. If the rolls will be a focal point of your buffet (and they can be, depending on the recipe.) you’ll probably need two rolls per person.
If the rolls are extra large, you might only need one roll per person. And if there’s going to be a lot of other food, one per person might be enough.
If you want to buy premade cinnamon rolls from the grocery store to bake, most tubes come in quantities of 8 per tube, and you should plan on two per person (unless there’s a lot of other types of food) since they tend to be on the smaller side.
Here’s a quick cheat sheet of how many rolls you’ll need to buy for different crowd sizes if you’re planning on buying them.
| Number of Guests | One roll per person | Two rolls per person |
| 10 | Two tubes | Three tubes |
| 20 | Three tubes | Five tubes |
| 30 | Four tubes | Eight tubes |
| 40 | Five tubes | Ten tubes |
| 50 | Seven tubes | Thirteen tubes |
| 60 | Eight tubes | Fifteen tubes |
| 70 | Nine tubes | Eighteen tubes |
| 80 | Ten tubes | Twenty tubes |
| 90 | Twelve tubes | Twenty-three tubes |
| 100 | Thirteen tubes | Twenty-five tubes |
If you have a large group this can get pretty expensive, so you might want to make your own rolls to save some money and to get what most people would say is a better-tasting cinnamon roll!
This recipe for Pumpkin-Cinnamon rolls will make about 28 large rolls. You can freeze them ahead of time then bake them before you need them, or bake them ahead of time and warm them up in a warm oven before serving: Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Recipe
Here’s a chart for this specific recipe. Don’t increase the basic recipe by more than 2X for the best result. If you need more than that, do multiple batches instead of one gigantic one!
| Number of Guests | One roll per person | Two rolls per person |
| 10 | 1/2 batch | 1 batch |
| 20 | 1 batch | 1 1/2 batch |
| 30 | 1 1/4 batch | 2 1/4 batches |
| 40 | 1 1/2 batch | 3 batches |
| 50 | 2 batches | 2 3/4 batches |
| 60 | 2 1/4 batches | 4 1/4 batches |
| 70 | 2 1/2 batches | 5 batches |
| 80 | 3 batches | 5 3/4 batches |
| 90 | 3 1/4 batches | 6 1/2 batches |
| 100 | 2 3/4 batches | 7 1/4 batches |
you’ll need for each guest count.How to make cinnamon rolls ahead without freezing.
If you want to avoid freezing the dough, you can make the rolls the day ahead, then put them in the fridge after shaping them.
When you make anything that’s a bread product, you should give it two rises, and the second rise is the one that you can slow down by cooling the dough off.
Bakers refer to the dough rising as “proofing,” so we’re basically going to slow down the second proof.
To make the rolls ahead using this method, start the dough the day before, shape the rolls and add the filling after the first proof, then put them on the baking sheet that’s lined with parchment paper to keep them from sticking. That’s an important step when you’re making cinnamon rolls, since the sugary filling can leak out and make the rolls stick to the baking sheet.
Once you have the rolls on the baking sheet, with a little space between them (follow the recipe that you’re using for this,) you can cover the pans with plastic wrap and put them in the refrigerator overnight.
The cool temperature in the fridge will slow down the second proof, so they won’t rise too much.
The next morning, take the pans out and let them warm up at room temp for about an hour, then bake them as usual.
This method is good, but it still means that you’ll have to take the time to make the cinnamon rolls the day before. If you’re going to be busy with other things, you could freeze the rolls up to a couple of weeks before, then bake them when you need them.
How to freeze cinnamon rolls ahead of time.
To freeze the cinnamon rolls so that you can make them well ahead of the day you’ll need them, you can make them up to the point that they’re ready to proof for the second time, then put the sheet in the freezer to freeze the dough.
The photos above show the before and after proofing of a pan of pumpkin cinnamon rolls. You want to freeze them before they proof for the second time because they’ll do that as they defrost.
When the unproofed rolls are frozen, you can wrap the entire pan with plastic wrap and leave them like that, which is the easiest way to go since you won’t need to move them around when you take them out to defrost.
If you don’t have room to freeze all of the pans, though, you can take the frozen rolls off of the parchment and put them in plastic ziplock bags to store them in a more compact way.
The evening before you’ll need the rolls, take them out of the freezer and put them on baking sheets that are lined with parchment paper. Cover the pans with plastic wrap and put them in the fridge to thaw out overnight.
If you froze them on the baking sheets all you’ll have to do is transfer the pans from the freezer to the fridge to let them thaw out overnight.
In the morning, take the pans out of the fridge and let them warm up on the counter for an hour, then bake them according to the instructions in your recipe.
Cinnamon rolls are a crowd-pleasing addition to any brunch or breakfast menu, and it’s a lot easier to make them ahead of time than you think!