Cinnamon Scrolls Are on a Tear

Pudgy cinnamon-sugared coils with swirls of cream-cheese icing were the breakout bakery star of 2025. Here’s where to find them in your city.

Cinnamon Scrolls Are on a Tear

Pudgy cinnamon-sugared coils with swirls of cream-cheese icing were the breakout bakery star of 2025. Here’s where to find them in your city.

Words by Tomas Telegramma · Published on 05 Aug 2025

There’s a childlike delight in diving fingers-first into a cinnamon scroll: piercing the cream-cheese icing, unfurling the pudgy cinnamon-coated coils and – maybe controversially – devouring the succulent centre first.

There was never a better time to be a cinnamon scroll stan than 2025. We’re living in a golden age of cinnamon scrolls, finally as ubiquitous as they are delicious.

While the hefty, icing-swirled version dominating our feeds was popularised by US chain Cinnabon, the scroll’s roots can be traced back to Europe. The earliest written cinnamon roll recipes are German and date back to the 1500s. But things really kicked off in the 17th century, when the Dutch (and later British) monopoly on Sri Lanka’s spice trade brought swathes of cinnamon from the island to the continent, permeating bakeries everywhere.

Homeboy, Adelaide. Photo: Giuseppe Silvestro

The English Chelsea bun, Swedish kanelbullar and Finnish korvapuusti are all early incarnations of the cinny scroll. If it weren’t for postwar migrants bringing Euro baking traditions to the States, Cinnabon never would’ve changed the game back in 1985.

Of course, cinnamon scrolls and buns were in Australia long before Cinnabon arrived (the chain now has more than two dozen locations here and counting), and our homegrown bakeries are now well and truly on a roll with their own creations. Meanwhile, cafes are remixing the treat into pancakes and iced drinks.

In Melbourne, the trailblazer is Caulfield South bakery Sebby’s Scrolls. Namesake Sebastian Castro and partner Annabelle Strahan opened in 2021 – first as a wholesaler supplying local cafes, then as a takeaway window in 2023.

In pre-Sebby’s Melbourne, “We mostly saw pastry-based scrolls baked in square tins [that were] dry and crumbly, with an icing-sugar glaze on top,” Strahan tells Broadsheet.

Sebby’s Scrolls, Melbourne. Photo: Amy Hemmings

Obsessive recipe testing produced the antithesis: scrolls that were super-soft, crusted with caramelised brown sugar and crowned with cream-cheese icing tart enough to offer a reprieve from the sweetness.

Outrageously long lines became a fixture at the original shop, and were mirrored at its St Kilda sibling. Between them, Strahan says, they sell up to 16,000 scrolls every week. In four years, Castro and Strahan have gone from a two-person operation to a business with nearly 30 staff.

Demand has remained consistently high at Sebby’s. But recently Strahan’s seen a fresh interest in cinnamon scrolls more generally. “At the beginning, they did so well here in terms of how visually appealing they are,” she says. “I think that’s still part of it.”

As more bakeries enter the scroll arena, their goods – and customer reviews – have started doing the rounds on social media. Strahan has noticed an increase in punters wanting to see how Sebby’s stacks up against the competition, which is likely driving up demand across the board.

Sundays, Sydney. Photo: Yusuke Oba

In Sydney, new scroll-only bakery Sundays took Bondi by storm when it opened in June. After owner Laetitia Loefti documented the ups and downs of her opening journey online, punters joined hour-long queues for a taste.

Loefti says she makes around 3000 scrolls a week, incorporating parts of her Indonesian grandma’s bread recipe into the bake to get ultimate squishiness, and ensure the scrolls don’t dry out too quickly.

“The reason I think scrolls are so popular is because they’re nostalgic for so many people,” Loefti says. “Just the smell of cinnamon brings back so many memories for me.”

Tuning into the reaction to cinnamon baked goods in Melbourne was a catalyst for Loefti to open her own bakery. “I wondered, ‘Will it work in Sydney?’. Things that work in Melbourne don’t always work here,” she says. But as lines grow ever longer, she may have got her answer: “I guess it’s fair to say it’s working?”