Pumpkin Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls With Pumpkin Frosting

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There’s something about the cozy scent of cinnamon, pumpkin, and freshly baked sourdough bread filling your kitchen on a cool fall morning. These pumpkin sourdough cinnamon rolls bring together everything we love about the season. The soft, pillowy dough and the comforting warmth of pumpkin and spice in every bite make these perfect for a delicious breakfast, dessert, or fall-time gathering. Try these paired with a cool glass of milk, a pumpkin spice latte, or even hot apple cider if you’re feeling festive. 

What Are The Health Benefits Of Sourdough?

Anytime you add a fermented element like sourdough to a recipe, it becomes more nutritious because it contains live probiotics and good bacteria that help with gut health and digestion.  Gluten and phytic acid are naturally present in wheat, and are usually what is to blame for people not being able to digest gluten well.  When the grain is fermented through the sourdough process, the gluten and phytic acid are broken down, making it easier to digest.  A lot of people that struggle with gluten intolerance (not people with celiac), can digest food made with sourdough without any issue, especially if the recipe is allowed to sit out for a few hours and “long ferment”.   

In addition, phytic acid is an anti-nutrient that blocks absorption of the nutrients found in wheat. During the sourdough fermentation process, the phytic acid gets broken down and the nutrients are more bio-available to the body. This is why baking with sourdough is so important for our health.

Be sure to watch our full tutorial on how to make your own sourdough starter here.

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Ingredients

Tools

Favorite Sourdough Recipes:

How to Make Pumpkin Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls

In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, combine the first seven ingredients.

If using a mixer, start mixing on low and slowly add the flour until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl.  If you use maple syrup as a sweetener, you may need to add a bit more flour just because the maple syrup is a liquid.  

If you’re not using a mixer, add the flour to the other ingredients in the bowl and knead until the dough comes together into a nice ball.  Stretch and fold or knead the dough every 15-30 minutes for a couple of hours.  This will develop the gluten similar to how the mixer develops it by mixing.

The baking powder and baking soda are optional and only needed if you are making these with sourdough discard, or if you want to bake them right away without letting them rise first.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough using a rolling pin to ¼” thick in the shape of a large rectangle.

Combine the filling ingredients together in a small bowl.

Spread some of the filling on the bottom of your 12 inch cast-iron skillet or 9 x 13 baking pan.

Using a spatula or wooden spoon, spread the last of the filling ingredients on the dough.

Using a pizza cutter or a sharp knife, cut the dough into 12 equal strips. 

Roll each piece of dough up into a roll.

Place in the cast-iron skillet or baking dish.

For the long fermented version:

Cover with plastic wrap or beeswax wrap and let the dough rise in a warm place overnight.  If you need to wait longer than overnight to bake them, place them in the refrigerator, and pull them out to finish rising a couple of hours before baking.

You can also freeze the cinnamon rolls at this point, and take them out of the freezer to raise and bake later on.

For the quick version:  proceed with baking.

Baking The Rolls

When ready to bake, preheat your oven to 350 degrees and bake rolls for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

While the rolls are baking, mix up the pumpkin cream cheese frosting.

Remove rolls from the oven and spread with the pumpkin cream cheese icing.

Serve with a pumpkin spice latte or a hot cup of tea and enjoy.

Store any leftovers in an airtight container in your refrigerator for up to one week, although I know they’ll never last that long.

If you try this recipe and love it, please come back and give it 5 stars! Tag me on Instagram @wagonwheelhomestead21 

Prep time 15 minutes, bake time 25 minutes.

Tips

• To gain all of the health benefits from making these with long-fermented sourdough, be sure to allow them to bulk ferment at room temperature overnight.  This will ensure that most of the phytic acid and gluten in the flour are consumed by the sourdough starter making these much easier to digest especially if you are gluten intolerant.
• If your sourdough starter is really thin, you may need to add a little more flour to this recipe.  I always mix them until the dough pulls away from the sides of my mixer bowl, or until it’s not super sticky if mixing up by hand.
• You can mix these in a mixer (my favorite is a Bosch), or just mix up the dough and do a series of kneading or stretch and folds every few minutes for about an hour to develop the gluten in these rolls.  Then just roll them out, shape and allow to rise until double and then bake.
• You can use string or a sharp knife to cut the rolls if you’d like, but I like to cut the dough into 12 equal strips, and then roll them up individually.
• It is perfectly safe to add the eggs to this dough and still allow the dough to bulk ferment at room temperature overnight because the good active bacteria in the sourdough starter will prevent any bad bacteria from forming on the eggs.
• You can make your own homemade pumpkin puree. I like to bake a homegrown sugar pie pumpkin from our garden at least once a week during fall and winter, and then make something with it like these pumpkin cinnamon rolls, or pumpkin focaccia. But you can also use store-bought pumpkin puree

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