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

We talk a lot of simple pleasures in life.  One of those simple pleasures for us is a loaf of homemade sourdough bread.  Tricia keeps a batch of sourdough starter going at all times as she bakes a loaf of bread each week.  I can't remember when we last bought a loaf of bread from the grocery store.  The wholegrain bread we make is from a mixture of spelt and kamut wheat. 

The sourdough starter smells so good.  Oftentimes I'll walk in the kitchen and Tricia is popping the top off the starter to smell the fermentation going on.  She was getting everything ready last night to make a fresh loaf, so I thought I'd grab my camera and document the process.  Here she's poured some of the wheat flour into the mixing bowl and added the starter.

The dough hook attachment on the mixer works the dough and gets it all kneaded and ready.

For the last ten minutes, the dough is taken out of the mixer.  Tricia kneads it, folds it, presses it and works it really hard.

Then she works it some more.  The bread changes form with the kneading, getting more elasticity.

We like to bake in stoneware loaf pans.  The stoneware is brushed down with coconut oil so the bread will pop out with ease after cooking.  Then we place the dough in the stoneware.

We cover it with a dishrag and will allow it to proof overnight.  In the winter time, when the house is cooler, we'll proof it in the warmer of the oven.

We began proofing at 10 pm.  Then here we are the next morning at 6 am.  Look at the difference of the photo above with the one below.  You can judge how much it has risen by looking at the distance between the rag and the bottom of the light plug receptacle in each.

The bread is put into the oven.  We call it Lovin' in the oven.  In just a skinny minute or two, the aroma of freshly baking bread fills the home with an irresistible fragrance.

“Good bread is the most fundamentally satisfying of all foods; and good bread with fresh butter, the greatest of feasts.” – James Beard

James Beard is right!  It is vitally important to cut a slice off while the bread is fresh from the oven, warm and soft.  I will fight you for the heel!  Spread some good homemade butter on the warm slice and it'll take your breath away.  That's some of the last butter from our cows for a while since we dried the cows off.

Give us this day, our daily bread...