Double Chocolate Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls
These double chocolate sourdough cinnamon rolls are soft and gooey, with a rich chocolate filling, and topped with a sweet cream cheese frosting. If there's anything better than classic cinnamon rolls, it's chocolate cinnamon rolls. These are perfect for Christmas morning or any time you want a sweet treat. Made with sourdough for the health benefits and the slight tang that pairs perfectly with the chocolate, the dough for these rolls can be made ahead of time and long fermented or baked up quickly. For chocolate lovers, these rolls are a must try.
Equipment
- cast iron skillet
- sharp knife
- Rolling Pin
Ingredients
Dough Ingredients
- ½ cup warm water or milk
- 1 cup sourdough starter
- ½ cup melted butter
- ½ cup sugar or honey
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 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
- ½ cup cocoa powder
Filling Ingredients
- ½ cup melted butter
- 1 ½ cups brown sugar
- 2 Tbl. cinnamon
- 2 cups dark chocolate chips
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.
Instructions
- To make the chocolate dough, in a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook attachment, combine the first five 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 of 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 butter, cinnamon, brown sugar, and chocolate chips on the dough (see video).
- Roll up dough, beginning with the long end of the rectangle.
- Using a sharp serrated knife, cut rolls into 12 equal pieces.
- Place in a greased 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 Chocolate 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 cream cheese frosting.
- Remove from the oven and spread the frosting over warm rolls.
- Serve warm with a cup of hot cocoa.
- 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
Notes
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 sweet rolls 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 chocolate cinnamon rolls if you’d like, but I find that cutting them with a knife works just fine for my family.
The cinnamon sugar and other filling ingredients can be mixed together first and then spread on the dough, or added individually as shown in the video.
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.
