I think one of the best things that has come out of the current COVID-19 crisis, is the sudden rise in sourdough enthusiasts. It makes me so happy hearing so many of you making or sourcing your first sourdough starters and experimenting with your first few recipes! There’s no doubt that there is a learning curve to sourdough – it takes some trial and error and each recipe is going to need to be tweaked a little differently depending on your unique sourdough starter. Some starters are more wet or dry depending on the type of flour you use, the ratio of flour to water you feed with, the altitude and humidity of your kitchen, and all that science-y stuff . Be ready to be flexible and add a bit more water or flour to your sourdough recipes depending on the hydration of your starter. Don’t overthink it, sourdough is very forgiving and once you make a few things, you’ll start to get a feel for the texture you’re going for in your doughs! I always like to remind myself that sourdough need not be over complicated. Remember, this is how everyone baked yeasted doughs before the arrival of commercial dried yeast in the late 1800’s-early 1900’s (here’s a fun history lesson if you’re interested). Anyone can do it, I promise!
In my sourdough experience there are two kinds of sourdough bakers out there:
Loves the science and artistic side of it - meticulously weighs everything out and acquires all the gadgets (temperature controlled proofing basket, kitchen scale, special proofing baskets and scoring blades, etc.). Operates in hydration percentages, follows an exact schedule and method for stretch and folds, makes gorgeous intricate designs, and tirelessly seeks for the perfect, instagram worthy, air-bubbled interior to their loaves.Makes due with every day household equipment, measures in cups, eyeballs it, adjusts by feel and texture, trial and error, goes with the flow. Sometimes remembers to do some stretch and folds. Results may not look like a work of art (though somehow they still do from time to time!), but taste amazing and contain all the same nutritional benefits as the type 1 result.
I love the type 1 bakers. I am in awe of the works of art they produce in their kitchens. But I am not the type 1 baker. I am 100% in the type 2 camp. If you identify more with type 1, you may find my sourdough recipes over simplified for your preference! The best place I could point you to is the sourdough master himself, Maurizio at The Perfect Loaf. Everything he makes looks (and I’m sure tastes) absolutely immaculate. His recipes include incredibly detailed instructions and all the hydration percentages, weighted measurements, and scheduled stretch and folds your heart could dream of! I like to take his recipes and translate them to type 2 baker terms – measurements in cups, no fancy equipment, and a bit more laid back instructions. I have absolute mad respect for his sourdough skills and techniques. My mom brain just needs quick and easy to follow recipes that don’t require thinking about hydration percentages and weights, and are fine to sit for twice as long as they should’ve when I inevitably forget. All that to say, proceed at your own discretion… :). Sourdough master, I am not. But I sure am thrilled with the sourdough creations that come out of my kitchen even with my laid back approach!
If you’re looking for a recipe to get your own sourdough starter going, I find the King Arthur method to be a foolproof route. You literally just add flour and water to a jar/bowl each day, discarding some before each feed, and wait for it to start bubbling up from the wild yeast already available in the air. So simple, so magical. Plan for it to take at least a week , give or take, to get your starter going from scratch. Here’s where I differed from the method – I tend to find a more equal ratio of flour to water works for my starter in my kitchen – you’re looking for the consistency of muffin batter. I like to feed 1/2 cup rye flour and water each time (I don’t use a full cup each feed unless I know I want to build up more starter, because I find it leads to so much waste). I never weigh anything or use any special temperature controlled area. The cupboard above my fridge was a nice warm spot to get my starter going and I just eyeballed it each discard by scooping out about half of my starter. We need not overcomplicate things!!
Once your starter is active and doubling in volume, you can store it in the fridge and feed it once a week (same drill, discard or use some then feed with flour and water) for easy maintenance and less waste. I’ve been getting a lot of questions lately about sourdough so I might try to write up a FAQ post on troubleshooting sourdough if you guys would find that helpful. Feel free to drop me any questions you have in the comments below or over on my IG page! Looking for other sourdough recipe ideas? So far I’ve added Sourdough Pizza, Sourdough Naan, and Sourdough Waffles to the blog. Hopefully many more to come!
Sourdough cinnamon rolls. These are kind of the pinnacle of my sourdough baking career. The dough is like a slightly sweet brioche, almost pastry like. Soft and flaky, filled with intoxicating cinnamon sugar spread. I’ve fiddled with the recipe over the years to make it both dairy and refined sugar free. I use almond milk in place of whole milk (but please know, any milk will work), and coconut sugar in place of white sugar (any dry cup for cup sweetener will work). My dairy sensitive family members are not affected by butter, but you can use ghee or vegan butter if you need to strictly avoid dairy (I haven’t tested this recipe with coconut oil, so I cannot guarantee it would work as a substitute). Add the goodness of true fermented sourdough and we’ve got ourselves a decently nutritious, yet totally decadent treat! My crowning achievement this time around was this homemade dairy free cream cheese frosting – something I hadn’t been able to master before. I used the vegan cream cheese recipe from Loving it Vegan (I’ve also linked it in the recipe instructions below) – it is made with soaked cashews, full fat coconut milk, salt, lemon, and vinegar. Super simple and I was able to freeze half for another use. From there I made my own frosting, sweetened with honey. I just can’t stomach using four cups of powdered sugar, like most frosting recipes call for, and I really don’t notice a difference sweetening this frosting with much less honey. Once these cinnamon rolls were frosted, no one even questioned whether the frosting was real cream cheese or conventionally sweetened – you could not tell the difference. Major win for my dairy sensitive family members over here!!! Of course if you aren’t dairy sensitive, go ahead and use regular cream cheese, I always try to give both options (and it makes me so happy knowing that both ways will turn out just as delicious!). You can also feel free to sweeten your icing with icing sugar should you prefer it, just follow the full frosting recipe from Loving it Vegan instead of mine below.
How to Time your Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls
The minimum time to prepare these cinnamon rolls to bake is 8 hours, but you can stretch the process over up to a few days depending on when you’d like to serve your rolls! If you’d like to serve them in the evening for dessert, you can easily complete the whole process in a day. Just start with making your dough in the morning, giving yourself at least 8 hours time before when you want to bake them. If you want to serve them for breakfast, you’ll want to start the day ahead by completing all the steps, up to rising the cut rolls in the pan for an hour or two. Cover the pan and refrigerate overnight (they will continue to rise slightly in the fridge). Take out of the fridge first thing in the morning and allow to come to room temperature on the counter before baking and serving. To serve your rolls in the afternoon (as I often do), you can prepare the dough in the late afternoon/evening the day before, and let the dough chill overnight. Roll out and form your rolls sometime in the morning and they will be ready to bake for the afternoon! The two best times to press pause and refrigerate over night (or even up to a couple days) are either after the first rise of the dough, or after you’ve formed your rolls and placed in the pan. You can technically freeze the rolls unbaked once formed in a pan but I haven’t had as good of success with them rising and puffing up like they usually would when baked from frozen. If I were wanting to make ahead and freeze, I would personally prefer to freeze them after they have been baked and cooled, unglazed. Let them thaw overnight in the fridge and then gently reheat them in the oven before glazing and serving.
Alright, let’s get to what we’ve all been waiting for. Perfect, decadent, easy to achieve, sourdough cinnamon rolls that happen to be pretty good for you. Ahhhhh, music to my ears. I’d love to know what you thought of them if you give this recipe a try – leave me a comment down below or tag me with your creations on Instagram! Happy sourdough baking!
Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls with Dairy Free Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
Cinnamon Rolls:
- 3/4 cup almond milk or milk of choice
- 4 eggs
- 1 cup mature sourdough starter
- 1/4 cup coconut sugar or sweetener of choice
- 3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 tsp sea salt
- 3/4 cup butter, ghee, or vegan butter room temperature
Filling:
- 2 tbsp butter, ghee, or vegan butter melted
- 2/3 cup coconut sugar or brown sugar
- 2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp sea salt
Dairy Free Cream Cheese Frosting:
- 8 ounces dairy free cream cheese recipe linked below or use store bought; regular cream cheese works also if you are not dairy free
- 1/2 cup butter, ghee, or vegan butter room temperature
- 1/2-3/4 cup honey or pure maple syrup
- 1 tsp vanilla extract you can also substitute fresh squeezed lemon or orange juice
- pinch sea salt
Instructions
- See "How to Time Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls" in the post above to decide when the best time to start your buns is, depending on when you want them ready. Take your butter/ghee out to come to room temperature. Cut up 3/4 cup into cubes for your dough.
- Whisk together the milk, eggs, sourdough starter, and sugar.
- Add the flour and salt to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook. You can also mix the dough by hand but it will require a lot more effort! Mix the flour and salt to combine.
- With the mixer on low, slowly add the wet ingredients to the flour mixture. Let it knead for 2-3 minutes until the dough starts to come together. It will be very wet and clumpy at this point. Let the dough rest for 10 minutes.
- After 10 minutes, turn the mixer on to medium and continue kneading for 5-6 minutes until the dough forms a smooth ball and all clumps are gone. The dough will still be quite wet and sticky. It should form a smooth ball but it will still stick to the bottom of the bowl. If your dough seems too dry, add more milk a dash at a time. If your dough seems excessively wet and will not come together, add more flour, a tablespoon at a time until it comes together.
- With the mixer on low-medium speed, add the cubed butter a few cubes at a time until each set of butter cubes is fully incorporated into the dough. Continue until all butter is incorporated into the dough and there are no visible butter patches. This will take at 4-8 minutes depending on the speed of your machine.
- Transfer the dough to a non-reactive rising bowl (preferable glass or ceramic). Allow to rise, covered, for 2 hours, performing a stretch and fold every 30 minutes (if you forget to do these folds, it will be fine, it just helps strengthen the dough). Stretch and fold by grabbing at a bottom corner of the dough, stretching it upwards, then folding it over the dough ball. Turn your bowl a quarter turn and repeat until you've stretched and folded all sides of the dough up and over the dough ball. There is no exact science to this, you are just incorporating air into the dough to strengthen it and help it rise better. Have fun with it!
- Place the covered dough in the fridge for at least 3-4 hours to chill, or overnight depending on when you would like to bake your buns (I typically put mine in the fridge overnight and finish the buns the next day). It is important that the dough is fully chilled before rolling out.
- When ready to roll out the dough, get your filling and rolling surface ready. Melt the butter and combine the sugar, cinnamon, and salt in a bowl. Generously flour a large rolling surface and rolling pin.
- Dump the chilled dough onto your rolling surface and sprinkle with flour. Roll out into a large rectangle (about 11×21"). Anytime the dough starts to stick to your rolling surface be sure to add more flour.
- Brush the melted butter all over the surface of your dough. Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar mix evenly, leaving a one inch strip bare lengthways down one the long edge of the rectangle furthest from you (this will help the butter make a seal on the final seam of the roll). Feel free to add any fillings that you like such as chopped nuts or raisins (pecans are delicious here!)
- Starting at the long end closest to you, begin rolling the dough into a long cylinder shape starting at one side and moving across. Try to wrap it snugly, especially for the first few revolutions so that your rolls stay together nicely.
- To get 12 equal rolls, cut the log in half, then cut each of those halves in half again. Finally cut each quarter section into 3 equal rolls (each roll will end up being about 2" thick).
- Line a 9×13" pan with parchment paper and arrange the rolls evenly into 4 rows of 3. I like to make sure to put some of the smaller rolls (end pieces) into rows with bigger one to even it all out, rather than have all of my biggest rolls fall into one row (if that makes sense?).
- Cover and rise for at least 2 hours, or until your rolls have risen enough that they touch. This usually takes me 3-4 hours at least but I tend to have a cooler kitchen and I find that my rye starter takes longer to rise than a white flour starter. The rolls will rise more once in the oven but you do not want to bake them until they have at least risen enough that they are touching and slightly puffed.
- About 30 minutes before you are ready to bake the rolls, preheat your oven to 400°F.
- Bake the rolls for 25-30 minutes, or until the rolls are nicely coloured on top and the dough is cooked through.
- Allow rolls to cool until warm to the touch before serving. Glaze rolls with frosting before serving (glaze only the rolls you serve if not planning to use the whole tray at once). Cinnamon buns will keep in the fridge for a week. Reheat and glaze with icing before serving.
Cream Cheese Frosting:
- Make your own dairy free cream cheese following the "vegan cream cheese" portion of this recipe, or use store bought. In the bowl of a food processor (you can also use a hand mixer or blender), add the cream cheese, butter, vanilla or citrus, and salt. Blend until smooth and thick.
- Taste and adjust flavours as needed. Sometimes I find I need a touch more honey, salt, or extract to get the right flavour. The frosting will be quite loose straight out of the food processor, but sets up nicely in the fridge. Store in the fridge until ready to use. Frosting keeps in the fridge for up to a week, or in the freezer for at least a few months. Save any extra frosting for another use!
Products Used In This Post:
This post includes affiliate links, meaning I made a small commission at no extra cost to you, should you decide to click through the links and purchase anything. These are my honest opinions and I would never recommend anything to you I didn’t absolutely love and use on a regular basis. Hope you find these lists helpful!
French Rolling Pin – My brother talked me into getting one of these years ago and I like it SOOO much better than the conventional kind with handles. This way nothing gets caught in the dip between the pin and the handles and you have a longer smooth continuous surface area to roll out large dough consistently. This is my only rolling pin, I’ve had it for years!
Yupik Coconut Sugar – Coconut sugar is my go to dry sweetener. It has about half as high of an impact on the Glycemic Index (how much it spikes your blood sugar) compared with table sugar, and contains many beneficial nutrients derived from the coconut palm. I don’t notice any sacrifice in taste or texture when I use coconut sugar in my baking. This brand is a great price and they have excellent customer service. One time I received a bag that had ripped open in the box and spilled everywhere and they sent a new one out right away, no questions asked.
Ghee– Clarified Butter. This is the best lactose free substitute for butter because it is made with butter so you get the same rich buttery flavour without the dairy. It’s also a valuable Source of fat soluble Vitamins A, D, E, and K. How cool is that?!
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I am glad that I found this article well documented and very informative.
I want to share how I treated Yeast and Candida Infection, maybe it
will be useful to someone: https://bit.ly/3cq12iO
Thank you and keep going, you do a great job!!
Thank you, glad you found it helpful!
Hello there Rachel,
I have done this recipe twice. Both times it was a major hit. The thing I love about sourdough most is that you can put it in the fridge at certain points to delay the next step. Therefore I could start it one day and finish it the next. The flexibility is helpful for my life with littles! The one thing I did differently the second time around was add more flour right off the bat. It was unbearably sticky the first time I did this recipe. My three-year-old loves to bake, so she got right in there with me and loved the process. Very good buns!
That’s so great to hear! Yes, I do find it’s a bit of trial and error with everyone’s individual sourdough starter hydration to figure out the right amount of flour to add – glad you were willing to experiment and that they turned out well for you!!
These are the best thing I’ve ever baked! They are life changing! I’m so over the moon with this recipe, now I can enjoy cinnamon buns without dairy!
I am so happy to hear that!! Thanks for taking the time to leave your feedback 🙂
Delicious! They turned out great both times I’ve made them so far 😀
That’s so great to hear!! I need to make these again, so yummy 🙂