Making Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls

Cinnamon rolls are a real treat around our house.  I'm sure you love them too - hot out of the oven with a cup of coffee!  There was a very kind lady who attended our church whose specialty was baking homemade cinnamon rolls.  She has passed away, but we still fondly remember when she would come to our house and knock on our door with a pan full of fresh, homemade cinnamon rolls still hot from the oven in her hands.  They wouldn't last long, that's for sure.

Tricia makes sourdough weekly.  She makes loaves of bread, hamburger buns, hot dog/poboy buns, dinner rolls, and all sorts of other goodies - all sourdough.  Sunday morning she was making sourdough cinnamon rolls and I thought I would capture the process for you.  She makes her sourdough the normal way and then sweetens the dough.  A cinnamon/sugar/butter combination is whipped up and put on top of the dough once rolled out into a rectangle.

The cinnamon concoction is spread evenly over the dough and then chopped pecans are sprinkled on top.

The dough is a little sticky, so you have to be careful with this step, lifting the edge with a tool and beginning to roll (hence the name cinnamon roll) the dough up into a big "log."

Almost done.  You can see how that tool is helpful in getting the dough 'un-stuck' from the counter.

And here we are.  Ready to start cutting into individual cinnamon rolls.

The tool is used to cut the log into individual rolls.  The left side (as you're looking at it) is done.  The ones on the right have to be cut one more time.

The rolls are arranged in a pan and baked.  We did have another pan with four of them that I didn't show in the photo.

A glaze is whipped up and poured over the top while still a little warm.

Now comes the best part - eating them!  I took a big bite out of this one.  Delicious!

Whether someone drops off a pan of these at your house or if you make a pan of them yourself, you can't go wrong with homemade sourdough cinnamon rolls.

Our Daily Bread(s)

Can't remember the last time we purchased a loaf of bread at the grocery store.  When Tricia started making sourdough bread, we both decided that it would be homemade sourdough from then on.  It's just so good.  Generally, we go through two loaves a week.  We can eat through half a loaf when the two loaves come out of the oven, hot and steamy, slathered with copious amounts of butter.

But there's more than just regular loaves of sourdough bread.  The sourdough starter can be used in many different types of recipes.  In addition to the regular loaves, we make bagels and keep some always frozen.  They're easy to pop out, thaw and make a bagel sandwich for lunch, or spread cream cheese on for a snack, or to eat with breakfast.

Last week Tricia made focaccia with kalamata olives and fresh rosemary and olive oil drizzled on top.  Here it is about to go into the oven:

Here it is shortly thereafter, with only about a quarter of it remaining... Oops!  

Of course there's the sourdough cinnamon rolls with cream cheese icing.  These are top notch, I tell ya.

I remember in both elementary and high school, the lunchroom ladies were famous for their hot yeast rolls.  They were so buttery and delicious!  They weren't sourdough, but Tricia wanted to attempt to recreate the same roll, albeit with sourdough.  So a trial batch went in the oven.

We had to put a pat of butter on top and try it out.

So good, I tell ya.  For lunch we split a roll in half and picked some fresh lettuce that we laid inside the roll and topped with some egg salad.  As the days are getting longer now, we have more than enough eggs.  It made for a nice little lunch!  Sourdough is fantastic.  We were trying to figure out when we first started it.  We can't remember.  You have to feed the starter and keep it going.  Tricia doesn't think it's been 10 years, but 7 to 8 years for sure.  I hope we can keep it living for years and years to come.

Our Daily Bread

 

Image Credit

This famed photograph hangs in the kitchen of my childhood home.  Mom and Dad have it overlooking the kitchen table.  An interesting background behind the "Grace" photograph can be found HERE. It was named the State photo of Minnesota.  The photo evokes thoughts of piety, simplicity, and gratitude to God for providing what we need each day.  He is faithful.

Tricia was on a tear in the kitchen the other day with her sour dough.  She made two loaves of sour dough bread and then made bagels.  I had been after her to make some homemade rolls that remind me of being in elementary school in the 70's.  The lunchroom ladies would make these homemade rolls that they would slather butter on the tops when they would remove the silver trays full of hot rolls from the oven.  It smelled so good and tasted heavenly!  Did they make rolls like that at your school?  Can you remember that?

Although we don't have those big silver trays, nor do we have a big, commercial oven, but my bride made me some homemade rolls!

Talk about lovin' from the oven!  We immediately put real butter on top and ate one while it was piping hot.  

But wait, there's more daily bread.  Tricia decided to make homemade cinnamon rolls - a sour dough variety.  This photo is me peering into the oven anticipating the buzzer going off to signify they're done.

Soon they were done and were placed on the counter to cool.

I wish you could smell this sticky goodness.  At the time of this photo, they were still too hot to try to eat.  The cinnamon sugar you see oozing out the top is like molten lava.  If you tried to put it in your mouth, it would burn the skin right off the roof of your mouth.  Lord, give me patience.

But good things come to those who wait.  While I poured some coffee and waited for the sour dough cinnamon rolls to cool, my wife had made a cream cheese icing for the cinnamon rolls.

We are indeed thankful for Our Daily Bread, from both a literal and a spiritual standpoint.