Fill your house with the smell of freshly baked Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls, full of lots of cinnamon flavor and topped with a homemade whipped cream cheese frosting. Made with my sourdough starter, these rolls will melt in your mouth and you will want to make another batch immediately! For another delicious breakfast (or anytime) roll, try my Raspberry Cream Cheese Sweet Rolls.
Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls
Cinnamon Rolls have to be one of my favorite sweet rolls of all time. With just the right amount of cinnamon flavor and the perfect amount of frosting, I can’t pass them up anytime they are around or at my local cafe. The rolls are the perfect lazy morning treat to have with your coffee or tea. Adding the sourdough starter to these cinnamon rolls gives each bite just a little extra ‘zip’, or tangy flavor that I love with sourdough bread.
Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls Dough
It all starts with the dough for these Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls. So, get out your stand mixer with the hook attachment, and mix all the dough ingredients together for about 5 minutes. Make sure the dough is moist and sticky, but not too sticky. You can always add a little flour to the dough, but you don’t want it to be dry. Place the dough into a greased medium-sized bowl, cover it with a towel, and let it sit in a warm spot for 3-5 hours.
After the 3 hours, place the dough onto a floured work surface. Flatten out the dough into a rectangle. (You shouldn’t even need a rolling pin for this step.) If you want 9 cinnamon rolls, roll the dough a little thinner. For thicker cinnamon rolls, keep the dough to about 1/2-inch thickness.
Can I Freeze Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls?
Yes! You can freeze them before they rise and bake by covering them with plastic wrap and aluminum foil. Just take them out of the freezer when you are ready to bake them and let them thaw and rise before completing the rest of the steps. You can also freeze them after baking the rolls, but before adding the frosting. In addition, you can freeze them with no problem after you have frosted the baked rolls. Again, cover them with plastic and aluminum foil. But, be sure to let them cool before freezing them.
Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls
Ingredients
DOUGH
- ½ cup (123g) whole milk, room temperature
- 1¾ cup (219g) all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
- 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 1 cup sourdough starter, discard or fed
- 1 pinch salt
FILLING
- 3 tablespoons butter, melted and cooled
- ⅓ cup (67g) brown sugar
- 2 teaspoon cinnamon
WHIPPED CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
- 3 ounces cream cheese, softened
- ¼ cup (57g or 1/2 stick) butter, softened
- 1½ cup (188g) confectioners' sugar, sifted
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 pinch salt
Instructions
DOUGH
- Add all the dough ingredients to stand mixer. Using the dough hook attachment, knead ingredients for about 5 minutes. The dough should be moist and sticky, not dry and in a ball. If it is too sticky, you can add up to 1/4 cup more flour so that you can easily move it to the bowl.
- After all the ingredients are incorporated and the dough is smooth, place into a medium-sized bowl that has been greased. Cover with a towel and place in a warm spot for about 3 hours. (Can sit for up to 5 hours.)
- After the dough has risen, prepare a solid surface countertop with a light dusting of flour.
- Pour dough out onto the counter and press it flat. This dough is so soft and pliable you should not even need a rolling pin. Press the dough out (being sure it is not sticking to the counter) into a rectangle shape. If you want 9 rolls, make the rectangle thinner and larger, if you want 6 rolls it can be a bit thicker, like 1/2 inch thick.
FILLING
- In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon with a fork.
- Pour 3 tablespoons butter over the dough so that it covers the entire surface.
- Spread brown sugar and spice mixture over dough making sure it covers the entire surface.
ROLLING & CUTTING
- Roll the dough up, pinching with your fingers to keep it tightly rolled. Press the seam to seal before positioning the log seam side down.
- Using a very sharp knife, cut the dough into 6 or 9 pieces (depending on the thickness of dough). Place in a greased 8×8-inch baking pan.
- Place the rolls in a warm dry space and allow them to rise for about 2 hours.
BAKING
- Bake at 350°F for about 25 minutes, or until lightly golden brown.
WHIPPED CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
- When rolls are almost done baking, put cream cheese, butter, confectioners sugar, vanilla, and salt in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment.
- Mix on low to just combine. Once ingredients are all incorporated turn mixer on high and leave it for 4-5 minutes. Frosting should be light and fluffy.
- Place cream cheese frosting on rolls right in the pan OR invert rolls onto serving plate and then top with frosting.
Did you make this recipe?
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I made this recipe using sourdough discard and it came out so good!!! I’m about to go make some more.
I made these today because the recipe looked easy to follow and really yummy. Did not disappoint! Definitely will be making these again.
Amazing recipe! Thank you! I have tried several sourdough cinnamon roll recipes, and this is by far the best! I even forgot about my dough during the 2-5 hour rise (left it for 12 hours!), and it still worked beautifully. Maybe even better! Thank you again.
Tried this recipe twice. Worked wonderfully both times. I doubled the recipe twice – we eat a lot. I used 1/2 discard and 1/2 fresh bubbly starter. Super amazing both times. Thank you for sharing!
Can you freezer this recipe?
Only change I made was to add 1 tsp of instant yeast. I also let it rise overnight in the refrigerator for the first rise. Otherwise they turned out perfect! Light and fluffy! A winner recipe! I will be making again with my bread starter.
The lightest most delicious cinnamon rolls from heaven! It’s my go-to cinnamon roll recipe. If my discard is I fed, I throw a half teaspoon or so of dry yeast in. While it’s mixing, I watch the texture and add more flour if needed.
I am a fairly experienced baker, although somewhat new to the sourdough world. I followed the directions exactly, using weighed(270g) discard from starter that was fed yesterday. Although my initial dough looked and behaved ad described, after adding 1/4 cup additional four, it did not rise as much as expected despite proofing in a warm oven for last 2 hours. I decided to continue with the recipe and all seemed well until I tried to roll it up. During the rolling it completely disintegrated on me! Luckily I rolled out on a floured silicon mat and was able to use a spatula and gravity to finish rolling it the best I could. I ended up just roling the whole log into a spiral and plopped it in a pie pan. It’s sitting in a warm oven now for the final rise. Im hoping I can salvage it into something edible, in the least. It seems to me that the only way to possibly achieve consistent results would be to use a starter that is in a more active state. I’m pretty bummed I wasted so much time and ingredients on a failure.
I made 8 batches. Super easy to make. Some batches required a little more than an extra 1/4 cup of flour, but they all came out well. For the first 3 batches, I made them separately but I made the icing in one big batch. It was way too much icing. So for the next 4 batches, I only did 3 batches worth of icing. Still had plenty of leftovers to use on the final batch next week for me and my kid (the other 7 I’m selling at the market tomorrow). Next time I make several batches for a market, I’m going to make one batch of icing and see how far it gets me.
I forgot to leave the rating on my last comment. 4 stars only because the huge excess of icing. Otherwise it would be a 5!