Nana’s Cinnamon Buns
Pan of 6
The original. Overnight yeast dough, dark cinnamon sugar, and a thin vanilla glaze that goes on warm.
$45
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Mawmaw’s recipe · Nana’s hands
Nana learned these yeast rolls standing at her mother’s elbow in Memphis. Mawmaw never wrote a thing down — you learned by watching, or you didn’t learn. Almost sixty years later they still come out of a pan, and now they can come out of your oven too.
Three generations
“Mawmaw never gave me the recipe. She gave me a Saturday.”
— Nana, born 1955, Memphis, Tennessee
She was a girl in a Memphis kitchen with a mother who taught by doing. She has been in Jacksonville for more than forty years now, and in all that time the recipe has not moved an inch. The proof is that every person who has ever eaten one asks for the recipe, and she still says the same thing Mawmaw said: come over Saturday.
Fresh from the kitchen
No stand mixer. Nana mixes and shapes them by hand, and they pull apart in soft sheets. This is how they leave the kitchen.
Real yeast dough, proofed slow and overnight. It pulls apart in soft sheets instead of crumbling. That is the difference between a yeast roll and a cake-style cinnamon roll.
Real butter, real cinnamon, real vanilla. No bleached or bromated flour, no hydrogenated fat, no artificial preservatives or colors.
The pan gives the edges their caramel and keeps the middles pillowy. They bake and ship in the same pan.
The same three steps as that first pan in 1967 — Mawmaw’s dough, Nana’s hands, no mixes and no shortcuts.
Full disclosure
The amounts and method stay in the family, but the full ingredient list never will. Here is exactly what goes into each one — real pantry ingredients, nothing artificial.
The original — overnight yeast dough, dark cinnamon sugar, and a thin vanilla glaze. Made entirely with organic ingredients.
Contains wheat, milk and egg.
Mawmaw’s plain yeast buns — the source recipe every Nana Bun is built on. Made entirely with organic ingredients.
Contains wheat, milk and egg.
The savory side of the yeast bun — built on the same organic dough, then turned toward dinner. Three to start. The savory add-ins are not organic-certified.
By flavor, on top of the base:
Balsamic Parmesan — honey, balsamic vinegar, parmesan.
Chili Crisp — Nana’s Chili Crisp, sesame oil.
Parmesan Seasoned — parmesan, roasted garlic & onion, olive oil.
Contains wheat, milk and egg.
Potassium bromate · azodicarbonamide · bleached flour · hydrogenated fats · high-fructose corn syrup · artificial dyes · artificial flavors · artificial preservatives
Several of these are standard in American commercial baking and restricted or banned in the EU, the UK and Canada. If you are reading this from overseas: none of them has ever been in a Nana Bun. We bake to the stricter standard, wherever the bun is headed.
Contains wheat, milk and egg. A gluten-free version of every product is in testing and will get its own ingredient list when it ships.
The Bakery
Every pan is baked to order — frozen and par-baked in an insulated box. Twenty-two minutes at 350°F in your oven, and they finish fresh.
Every pan is baked to order and paid at handoff — no card needed today. Outside Florida? Join the list and you will hear the day that changes.
Pan of 6
The original. Overnight yeast dough, dark cinnamon sugar, and a thin vanilla glaze that goes on warm.
6 buns + a handwritten card
Kraft box, wax paper, twine, and a card Nana writes herself. Tell us what to say and she will say it.
Pan of 6, every week
A fresh pan every week so it is in your freezer by Sunday. One-month minimum, then skip or cancel any time.
Coming soon
Gourmet jumbo muffins, iced cupcakes, savory yeast buns and Nana’s Chili Crisp. Each one is on the shop page with a Notify me button.
See what’s comingNew · by the loaf
Nana’s slow yeast dough, dimpled and baked into a golden focaccia — black olives, sun-dried tomatoes, fresh rosemary, and flaky sea salt on top. One loaf, $18.
Ingredients: Nana’s yeast dough, black olives, sun-dried tomatoes, rosemary, olive oil, sea salt. Contains wheat, milk and egg.
How it gets to you
Par-baked the morning it ships, flash-frozen, and packed in an insulated liner with gel packs. We will ship Monday through Wednesday only — nothing should sit in a truck over a weekend.
Two-day carrier, tracked. Into your freezer for up to three months, or straight into the fridge if Sunday is close.
Twenty-two minutes at 350°F, then the glaze while they are hot. Full baking instructions come in the box.
The Flavor Wheel
Cinnamon is first out of the oven — Mawmaw’s original. The rest are in the test kitchen — sweet and savory both — and each gets its own color once Nana approves it.
Sweet
Savory
Every flavor shares the same label; only the color changes.
Grocers & Cafes
We are a Florida local producer in the making, building toward Whole Foods, The Fresh Market and independent grocers across the Southeast. If you buy for a store, a cafe or a hotel, start here.
Wholesale & RetailThe order book
Every dot is a real order, plotted right where it came from. Neighbors first, then the rest of Florida — the map fills in from here.
Orders by city
The Pantry
The buns came first because they are the thing people beg for. But Nana’s kitchen has two more famous things in it: a dark gumbo roux she stirs for the better part of an hour, and a Sunday gravy that simmers all afternoon. Both are coming to a jar.
Get on the list and you will hear when the first buns are ready — and about the first jars before anyone else.
From the kitchen, this week
Nana has agreed to be on the internet. She would like everyone to know she still does not trust it.
Nana on TikTok
The short ones — rising dough, cast iron, Mawmaw’s rules, thirty seconds at a time. Caden holds the phone. Nana pretends not to notice.
Nana on Facebook
The long Saturday bakes, start to finish, no cuts. Facebook is the one platform Nana can find on her own — most days.
Her latest, on Facebook