Easy Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls – Overnight Recipe (Video)
These easy sourdough cinnamon rolls will be your favorite cinnamon rolls in no time! They can be made the night before so you can quickly bake them fresh for breakfast in the morning, or you can bake them right away for a quick dessert. You can mix them up in a mixer, or just do some quick stretch and folds by hand. They can also be made with discard or active sourdough starter and they will turn out just fine. This is a very flexible recipe for soft and fluffy cinnamon rolls that you and your family are going to love! The best cinnamon rolls I’ve ever tasted have been made with sourdough. There’s something about the slight tang of the sourdough combined with the sweet ribbons of brown sugar filling that makes these the absolute best cinnamon rolls you’ll ever eat!
There’s nothing quite like a delicious batch of sourdough cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning, for a family brunch or even for a Sunday morning breakfast. They are delicious with a warm cup of coffee or tea for a special occasion, or even with a bowl of chili for a comforting supper. Because they can be made the night before, you can easily have them ready for a yummy breakfast anytime during the year, even during the busy summer months. Sourdough sweet rolls and coffee in the garden make for a delicious breakfast.
You can easily make this sourdough cinnamon roll recipe into sourdough sticky buns by adding a simple caramel sauce, or top them with maple cream cheese frosting, or a traditional powdered sugar frosting. There are several variations for these cinnamon rolls listed in the printable recipe below and shown in the video.
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.
For more of our favorite sourdough recipes, check out the sourdough portion of our website: Sourdough.
This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you. See my full disclosure here
FAQ
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 they 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 to cut the cinnamon rolls if you’d like, but I find that cutting them with a knife works just fine for my family.
- 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.
Dough Ingredients
Frosting Options
Caramel Sourdough Sticky Bun Filling
- Butter
- Brown Sugar
- Water
Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
- Cream cheese – I like to make my own cream cheese by straining out plain yogurt
- Heavy cream – I use the cream from my Jersey milk cows, but use whatever kind of cream you have
- Maple Syrup
- Vanilla extract–
Classic Cream Cheese Frosting
- Cream cheese
- Butter
- Milk
- Powdered sugar
- Vanilla extract
- Leftover coffee (optional) – this will give the frosting the best flavor.
Tools You May Need
- Stand mixer. You can mix these rolls up by hand, but I usually use my favorite Bosch mixer and just mix up the dough while I’m cleaning up supper dishes in the evening. This makes the rolls fast and easy to make.
- Measuring cups and spoons
- Rolling pin
- Sharp knife
- Cast iron skillet
- Saucepan (for making the sticky bun caramel or cream cheese frosting)
- Immersion blender (for mixing the maple cream cheese frosting)
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How To Make Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls
In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, combine the first six 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’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 hours. This will develop the gluten similar to how the mixer develops it by mixing.
Combine the filling ingredients in a small bowl.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough using a rolling pin to ¼” thick in the shape of a rectangle.
Spread the filling ingredients on the dough (see video).
Roll dough up beginning with the long side of the rectangle.
Using a sharp serrated knife, cut rolls into approximately 1 ½” lengths.
Place in a greased cast iron skillet or baking dish.
Cover with plastic wrap or beeswax wrap and let the dough rise on the counter overnight. If you need to wait longer than overnight to bake them, place them in the refrigerator, and pull them out to finish raising 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.
When ready to bake, preheat your oven to 375 degrees (350 degrees is better if you’re making caramel rolls as they take a little longer to bake).
For caramel sticky buns, pour the cooled caramel over the rolls before baking. For cream cheese frosted cinnamon rolls, just bake them as they are.
Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Caramel rolls usually need to bake an extra 5-10 minutes to be done in the middle.
While the rolls are baking mix up the cream cheese frosting.
Remove from the oven and spread frosting over warm rolls. If making the caramel rolls, flip them upside down on a platter so the caramel is on the top. Can add nuts if desired.
Serve warm with a cup of coffee or tea from Farmhouse Teas.
Savor every bite! 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
Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls – Overnight Recipe (Video)
Ingredients
- 1 cup water or milk
- 1 cup sourdough starter
- ½ cup melted butter
- ½ cup sugar or honey
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 eggs
- 4-5 cups flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder optional – only use if baking right away
- 1 teaspoon baking soda optional – only use if baking right away
- Cinnamon Sugar Filling
- ½ cup melted butter
- 1 ½ cups brown sugar
- 2 Tbl. cinnamon
- Topping Options:
- Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
- 8 oz. cream cheese
- ½ cup heavy cream
- ½ cup maply syrup
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- Classic Cream Cheese Frosting
- 8 oz. cream cheese
- ¼ cup butter
- 1 Tablespoon vanilla
- 2-3 Tablespoons milk can add more to make a thinner frosting
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- Leftover coffee optional – Add 2-3 Tablespoons to give the frosting the best flavor.
- Caramel for Sourdough Sticky Buns
- ½ cup butter
- ⅓ cup water
- 1 ½ cups brown sugar
Instructions
- In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, combine first six 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’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 hours. This will develop the gluten similar to how the mixer develops it by mixing.
- Combine the filling ingredients in a small bowl.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough using a rolling pin to ¼” thick in the shape of a rectangle.
- Spread the filling ingredients on the dough (see video).
- Roll dough up beginning with the long side of the rectangle.
- Using a sharp serrated knife, cut rolls into approximately 1 ½” lengths.
- Place in a greased cast iron skillet or baking dish.
- Cover with plastic wrap or beeswax wrap and let the dough rise on the counter overnight. If you need to wait longer than overnight to bake them, place them in the refrigerator, and pull them out to finish raising 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.
- When ready to bake, preheat your oven to 375 degrees (350 degrees is better if you’re making caramel rolls as they take a little longer to bake).
- For caramel sticky buns, pour the cooled caramel over the rolls before baking. For cream cheese frosted cinnamon rolls, just bake them as they are.
- Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Caramel rolls usually need to bake an extra 5-10 minutes to be done in the middle.
- While the rolls are baking mix up the cream cheese frosting (instructions below).*
- Remove from the oven and spread frosting over warm rolls. If making the caramel rolls, flip them upside down on a platter so the caramel is on the top. Can add nuts if desired.
- Serve warm with a cup of coffee or tea from Farmhouse Teas.
- Savor every bite! Store any leftovers in an airtight container in your refrigerator for up to one week, although I know they'll never last that long.
Caramel Sourdough Sticky Bun Frosting:
- Bring to a boil in a small saucepan. Simmer for 1 minute. Allow to fully cool and pour over cinnamon rolls right before putting them into the oven.
Maple Cream Cheese Frosting:
- Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan over medium heat just until warm. Blend with an immersion blender to fully combine.
Classic Cream Cheese Frosting:
- In a medium sized bowl, mix all ingredients with a hand mixer until well combined and fluffy.
Notes
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 they 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 to cut the cinnamon rolls if you’d like, but I find that cutting them with a knife works just fine for my family.
- 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.
Want to try these. I have a couple of questions. does it need to be stirred down then measured? Is the caramel something purchased or is Kraft caramels melted?
No, the sourdough doesn’t have to be stirred down before it’s measured. The caramel is made out of brown sugar and butter, all from scratch. I hope you enjoy these!