Tag: sourdough starter

A Family Tradition

When my now-husband and I first started dating, I was excited to bake yummy treats to impress him. The saying goes that "the way to a man's heart is through his stomach," so I figured it couldn't hurt to do some culinary bonding. 😉 Our first Christmas as a couple, I really pulled out all the stops and made a huge spread for us to enjoy together. One of the stars of the show on that Christmas morning was my from-scratch cinnamon rolls with cream cheese icing. Since that day, my cinnamon rolls have been kind of a tradition in our family. They're on the table every Christmas morning, but not only then... any time we are all together for breakfast, they have made a delicious treat!

The one problem with my traditional cinnamon roll recipe was that it called for instant yeast, which meant that on the day we wanted warm cinnamon rolls, I had to spend a long time in the kitchen. And it would be several hours from the time I first mixed and kneaded the dough to the time we could finally sink our teeth into a warm cinnamon roll. So that meant spending a decent portion of Christmas morning in the kitchen, mixing ingredients and working with dough instead of relaxing with my family.

When I began my sourdough journey a few months ago, I initially worried that I would spend hours in the kitchen slaving over a starter and doing stretch and folds, but I ended up being amazed at how much more freedom I had with sourdough! The "bulk fermentation" process meant that instead of needing to be home for at least a stretch of several hours after mixing ingredients for bread, I could mix them in the bread machine and then put the whole canister into the fridge and forget about it until the next day (or even several days later) when I had time to bake it. I was determined to find a way to do the same thing with my cinnamon roll recipe.

Breakdown of Process

After a lot of calculations and weighing different ingredients, I finally had a recipe draft that I was ready to use this weekend. So on Saturday afternoon at 3:15 pm, I added all my ingredients to the bread machine canister. I was a little worried because I didn't know how the recipe would do, now that I had converted it to sourdough. And I was also worried that my starter wouldn't be active enough to make them rise properly. In a moment of daring, I just pulled my starter from the fridge and used it cold after stirring a notable "hooch" back in. I figured my starter would just be "fed" when I added all the bread and water (and other ingredients) to it and hoped for the best.

Our bread machine is the Amazon Basics one that retails for around $70. This particular machine has a cycle (option 7) that kneads the dough two separate times, giving the dough a brief rest in between the kneading. The entire cycle lasts an hour and a half, but I have used this machine long enough that I know after an hour, it's not going to do anything else with the dough except sit there and let it rise. So an hour after I added all my cinnamon roll ingredients to the canister, I stopped the cycle, covered the canister with plastic wrap, and placed it in the back of our fridge. If you're doing the math, that was at 4:15 pm on Saturday afternoon. That's all I did to the dough on Saturday. We just enjoyed the rest of our afternoon together as a family and went to bed without another thought of the cinnamon rolls.

On Sunday morning, I opened the fridge at 8:22 am, curious if the dough would be proofed enough for us to make cinnamon rolls for brunch. The dough had risen a little in the canister and looked beautiful, a rich golden color thanks to the butter and eggs used in this recipe (instead of oil like my loaf bread). I nervously stuck my finger into the dough to do the "poke test." The dough was just right. It depressed under my finger but rose slowly back after I pulled my finger away. I was elated by my success so far! I immediately plopped the dough onto the counter and began rolling it out. It was smooth and rolled just as well as my original recipe did!

After rolling out the dough, I spread softened butter on top and sprinkled cinnamon sugar on top of that. Then I simply rolled up the dough, cut it with my pastry cutter, and placed the rolls in my baking pan (covered with a tea towel) and went back into the other room to check on my baby. It was only 8:30 am, so I had only spent a grand total of 8 minutes working with dough that morning.

We left the rolls to rise for 45 minutes before I checked on them and found them to be almost doubled in size. So I preheated the oven to 350 and came back about 15 minutes later to put the rolls into the oven. We let them bake for 25 minutes before checking them. They rose wonderfully in the oven and were busting at the seams of my pan, which had previously had plenty of space between rolls. They weren't quite done, so we let them bake for 10 more minutes before pulling them out. I mixed up a quick and easy cream cheese frosting and smothered the rolls in it before serving them, still warm and deliciously gooey, at 10:30 am. I think this recipe is going to be our go-to for Christmas mornings from now on!

Breakdown of Ingredients

Water: Hydrates the flour and helps sourdough starter mix more thoroughly with the dough so it can leaven it.

Starter (flour and water): Acts as a leavening agent and also breaks down the phytic acid in the flour so that the nutrients in the grain (particularly folic acid) can be more bioavailable when we eat it.

Bread flour: A high protein flour (i.e. bread flour) is very helpful when making a recipe that is rising with either yeast or sourdough (instead of baking soda or baking powder). When I make these cinnamon rolls, I like to use whole wheat flour for health benefits, but I always use at least half bread flour because that gives me the best results with the rise.

Sugar: Sweetens the dough. I use an unrefined organic sugar that we buy at Walmart for a pretty affordable price. I know you can also buy unrefined sugar in bulk and save money that way.

Softened butter: Adds richness, flavor, and a soft texture to the rolls. You could also use oil, but butter gives the best results for this recipe. We buy bulk packages of unsalted butter from Sam's Club, and that is what I used for this batch. You could probably use salted butter as well.

Salt: Adds flavor to the dough.

Egg plus egg yolk: Adds hydration and richness of flavor and texture to this dough. It also gives a beautiful golden color to the rolls and is a source of healthy fat and nutrients, including choline.

The rolls are filled with butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. The butter adds flavor and helps the cinnamon sugar mixture to adhere to the dough. The cinnamon and sugar add flavor and sweetness to your rolls. 🙂

The cream cheese frosting is made simply with butter (for flavor and richness), cream cheese (for flavor and richness), vanilla (for flavor), and powdered sugar (for sweetness).

Golden brown cobbler crust combined with sweet, warm peaches = summertime perfection. 🙂