High-Protein Cookies & Cream Cinnamon Rolls

After the success of my protein cinnamon rolls, I knew I wanted to try one different version.

Cinnamon rolls are incredible, but what if we can combine them with Oreos? I present to you: cookies & cream cinnamon rolls.

Oreo cinnamon roll

Technically speaking, these aren’t “cinnamon” rolls, as I’m not using a traditional cinnamon filling. To be honest, I tried using some cinnamon in my first attempt, but the flavor clashed with the Oreo.

But, we’re still going to call these cinnamon rolls, because it just makes sense.

Each cookies & cream cinnamon roll contains 190 calories with 12 grams of protein, making it a great dessert or breakfast option. Plus, with no yeast required, there is no advanced prep needed.

Interior of oreo cinnamon roll

Oh yeah, that’ll do. That’ll do just fine.

How to Make Cookies & Cream Cinnamon Rolls

Making the cinnamon roll dough is as simple as adding everything to a large bowl and mixing. The cinnamon roll dough is a play on the 2-ingredient dough made with self-rising flour and Greek yogurt, but with a few changes.

First, we’re adding some protein powder to the dough to bump up the protein content. The protein powder I use is a blend of whey & casein protein, and I highly recommend you use the same if you can.

You can use 100% whey protein, but whey protein tends to be stickier and leads to baked goods that are drier (check out my Protein Powder Substitution Guide to see the differences). If you want to use the same protein powder I use, the code “Matt” will save you 10% on PEScience brand protein powder.

Other than that, we’ll also be adding some light butter & applesauce to the dough. Butter is necessary to add some fat and moisture to the dough, and applesauce helps keep these light & airy.

Add the dough to a floured surface, either on a sheet of parchment paper or directly onto the counter. Don’t be shy with extra flour; high-protein dough can be sticky, so extra flour helps a ton.

Using a rolling pin, roll the dough out into a rectangle. It certainly doesn’t have to be perfect.

Rolled out cinnamon roll dough

As you roll out the dough, flip it over a few times to make sure it is not sticking. If it is, simply add some additional flour and continue. Since we are going to roll this dough up, it’s very important that it is not too sticky.

Any excess flour will get baked right into the rolls, so you don’t have to worry about that.

Once the dough is rolled out, spread the butter across to cover the entire thing. Since I used light butter, it was very easy to spread, but if you’re using regular butter, you’ll want to soften it first.

Crush up your Oreos (I do this in a sandwich bag), mix with sugar and black cocoa, then sprinkle over the top of the butter.

Oreo cinnamon roll filling

Orient the dough exactly as you see in the above photo, then roll the dough towards you, doing your best to keep it nice and tight. This will leave you with a long log dough.

Use a serrated knife to cut 8 cookies and cream cinnamon rolls. I like to trim the edges and score the dough before cutting so I can visualize how large each one will be. We don’t need perfection, but we want them to be similar so they bake evenly.

Cutting oreo cinnamon rolls

Add the cookies and cream cinnamon rolls to a round pan, leaving some space in between each to allow them to expand. If you don’t have a round pan, you can bake these on a regular baking sheet as well.

Oreo cinnamon rolls before baking

Bake the cookies & cream cinnamon rolls at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes.

While the rolls bake, make your protein icing. This is a very simple mixture of vanilla protein powder, sugar, milk, and crushed Oreo for added flavor.

Oreo cinnamon roll icing

Since this icing is made mainly from protein powder, make sure you use protein powder that you actually like. If you don’t like the flavor of your protein powder, you surely will not enjoy icing made from that powder.

After 20 minutes, remove the cookies & cream cinnamon rolls from the oven and allow them to cool for 10-15 minutes.

Batch of oreo cinnamon rolls

You can drizzle your icing right over the top of the cinnamon rolls (or completely cover them like I did with my Protein Cinnamon Rolls), but I actually prefer to plate these individually and then add my icing over the top of each.

Close up of oreo cinnamon roll

I love having control over how much icing I use, and it even works great as a dip for each roll.

And for extra flavor, sprinkle some Oreo crumbs over the top as well. Nobody is ever going to complain about having extra Oreos.

More recipes for Oreo lovers

It’s no secret that I love Oreos. If it’s cookies & cream flavored, I’m all over it. As you’ll see by this long list, it’s one of my go-to flavors for dessert recipes…

Ingredients

CInnamon Roll Dough

Oreo Cookie Filling

Protein Icing

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
Add all of the dough ingredients to a large bowl and mix until it forms a dough.
Lay a sheet of parchment paper on the counter and generously flour the surface. Remove your dough from the bowl, add it to your parchment paper, and sprinkle more flour over the top. The extra flour will make it significantly easier to work with this high-protein dough.
Roll out the dough into a large rectangle (roughly 10×14). I like to flip the dough a couple of times while rolling it out to make sure it is not sticking. If it is, simply add some additional flour.
Soften the butter for the filling in the microwave for a couple of seconds (it should be soft, not melted) then use a spoon or spatula to spread it over the dough.
Crush up your Oreos (I do this in a small sandwich bag), then mix it in a bowl with the brown sugar and cocoa powder. Sprinkle over the dough so all the butter is covered.
Position the dough so the short side of the rectangle is furthest away from you. Carefully roll the dough towards you, starting from the farthest short edge away from you.
Use a sharp knife (A serrated knife works best) to square off the edges of the roll, then slice the roll into 8 cinnamon rolls.
Place the cookies & cream cinnamon rolls in a round pan. They will expand when baked, so leave a little bit of room in between each.
Bake the protein cinnamon rolls at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes.
While the cinnamon rolls are baking, make a simple icing by mixing protein powder, sugar, crushed oreo, and milk until smooth and thick. Place in the fridge while the rolls finish baking.
Remove the cookies & cream rolls from the oven and allow them to cool for 10-15 minutes in the pan.
Drizzle your icing over the top, or plate the cookies & cream cinnamon rolls individually and add icing to each roll as needed.

Notes

If you don’t have black cocoa powder, you can use regular cocoa powder, but you’ll lose the authentic Oreo flavor. The best substitute is Hershey’s “Special Dark” cocoa powder, which is darker than regular cocoa powder.

The applesauce in the cinnamon roll dough helps keep the cinnamon rolls soft and cakey. You can leave it out if needed and use 50g of extra Greek yogurt instead, but the final result will be a bit denser (more like bagels).

These cookies and cream cinnamon rolls can be baked on a baking sheet instead of inside a cake pan, but baking the cake pan method is the traditional method to allow them to all bake together.

Note that I do not count the sugar substitute in my carb totals because they contain 0 calories, but if you are strict about counting carbs, be sure to calculate the nutrition on your own.

High-Protein Cookies & Cream Cinnamon Rolls

How to Make Cookies & Cream Cinnamon Rolls