The Best Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls You Ever Had

These are the KING of cinnamon rolls. Truly, they are the best. If you've never made cinnamon rolls with your sourdough starter, you HAVE TO try it. This dough is easy to make, easy to work with, and it bakes up into gigantic cinnamon rolls that are robust and soft all at once; perfectly sweet and just a touch sour; and doused in icing (thank you very much!).

I have made this recipe so much, I could probably do it in my sleep! I'm unsure if it's the richness of the dough, the size of the rolls, or just the concept of the effort that goes into them (which, really, isn't all that different than regular cinnamon rolls), but they feel ultra-indulgent. Regular yeasted cinnamon rolls and sourdough discard cinnamon rolls we like for all the time, but these cinnamon rolls are our special occasion cinnamon rolls. Christmas brunch? We're having these.

Have I called these king of all cinnamon rolls yet? They really are. The best of the best, the creme de la creme.

My first introduction to sourdough cinnamon rolls was from The Clever Carrot, and they changed my life. Seriously, I've always loved cinnamon rolls, but didn't know they could be THAT good. I made Emilie's recipe for years, and eventually it morphed into this one. Notable changes include increased butter, flour, and milk, a different filling mixture, and a different icing. They are both good - you can't go wrong with sourdough cinnamon rolls!

The Dough

This is a really easy dough to make, and once you do it a couple times, you'll get into a rhythm and it will be second nature. Here's how I do it.

Start by melting a stick of (unsalted) butter in a large skillet. Once it's melted, remove the skillet from the heat and add in the milk. It is important to remove it from the heat because if you don't, the residual heat from the burner will continue heating your pan and your milk mixture will get too hot. Then you'll either have to wait a while for it to cool, or use a too-hot liquid and kill off the yeasts in your starter. Ask me how I know!

A lot of bread recipes have the milk and butter heated together, then they have to cool before they're incorporated into the dough. I find if I add cold milk to the warm pan of melted butter, while it's off the heat, the residual heat from the pan and the warm, melted butter heat the milk while the milk cools the butter and it's the perfect temperature to use in no time.

Before using your milk mixture, be sure to stick a finger in it to make sure it's not too hot. You want it to feel like bathwater. If it's too hot, give it a few minutes to cool.

While your milk mixture is sitting off the heat, mix together the starter, sugar, and egg in the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attachment. With the mixer running on low speed, slowly pour in the milk mixture.

Add in the flour and salt and mix until combined. Cover and let it rest for 30 minutes to relax the gluten.

(I love my glass KitchenAid bowl for this - it comes with a lid so you can cover and uncover as needed without having to mess with plastic wrap, and it can sit on your mixer while you're letting it rest between mixing and kneading.)

Affix the dough hook to your mixer and knead for 6-8 minutes. Then, transfer to a large buttered bowl, cover, and let rise for 8-12 hours - until it's doubled in size.

The Filling

A LOT of cinnamon roll making has taught me that the filling is a crucial part of the cinnamon roll experience - too liquid and it seeps to the bottom of your pan, leaving a delicious crust at the bottom of each roll, but a sad amount of filling in your cinnamon roll swirl; too little, and it's hard to keep in place while rolling.

My very favorite way to do cinnamon roll filling - and quite possible my MOST VALUABLE TIP in this entire recipe is this: melt a couple of tablespoons of butter, then stir in brown sugar and (a lot of) cinnamon. This will make a wet sand consistency. Spread it all over your rolled out dough - it's easy to work with and will have enough traction to your dough to stick while rolling, but isn't liquidy enough to leak out during the second proof.

The Icing

We love a basic powdered sugar icing on our cinnamon rolls, with a hint of vanilla. This is my standard recipe that I use for all cinnamon rolls. It's easy to make and easy to modify!

If you want, you can even mix up a batch and keep it in your fridge for 1-2 days until you're ready to use it. (If you want a really streamlined cinnamon roll morning!)

To make it, add powdered sugar, melted butter, milk, and vanilla to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Whisk, increasing the speed slowly as the powdered sugar is incorporated, until fully combined - scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add more sugar if it's too runny or more milk if it's too firm.

A few tips:

• Sift your sugar if you want a perfectly smooth icing. I avoid sifting as much as I can in life (can you tell by these photos??), but if you want your icing to be lump-free, I highly recommend sifting your powdered sugar!
• Add your butter and milk on separate sides of the mixing bowl. Otherwise, the cold milk will work to solidify the butter. It will all melt when you pour it over warm cinnamon rolls and won't result in lumpy icing, but it can make it hard to accurately gauge the consistency of your icing.

Pour the icing over your rolls after they've cooled in the pan for 10-15 minutes. You want them to be warm enough that the icing oozes all over, but not so hot that the icing melts and drops straight to the bottom of the pan.

(Although, who are we kidding, it's delicious either way!)

Shaping Cinnamon Rolls

Roll your dough into a roughly 12 by 20-inch rectangle. I like to start it out by shaping the dough with my hands into a rectangle while pressing it out. I find starting with a rectangle makes it easier to get a rectangle as a final result. It won't be perfect, and that's okay!

Spread the cinnamon/sugar/butter mixture all over the dough, then roll into a tight log. Try to leave a 1-inch strip of dough uncovered by cinnamon sugar on one of the long ends so you can have dough-to-dough contact for sealing.

Once you have a nicely rolled and sealed log of dough filled with delicious cinnamon sugar, cut it into 8-9 2-inch rounds. Place the rounds as they're cut into a buttered OR parchment-lined 9-inch round pan.

I use a pie pan lined with parchment paper. For extra flexibility, and less wrestling with parchment paper, I highly recommend balling up and unballing your parchment paper a couple of times before placing in the pan. It will make it much more amenable to moving with your cinnamon rolls!

Tip: I often use my bench scraper to cut cinnamon rolls because I'm already using it to handle dough and I really don't care about having perfect spirals, but if you want to increase your chances of perfection, you can use unflavored dental floss (I know! It sounds gross!) to cut your rolls. Wrap a long piece around the log and pull the ends in opposite directions to slice. I've done it many times and it works very well - I just usually don't care enough to get an extra tool out!

Some people like to trim the ends off their logs to get a perfectly straight roll. You can do this if you want, but if you want maximum cinnamon rolls, feel free to use the imperfect ends. I turn them upside down in the pan so the straight edge is facing up. You can easily identify them once baked because they look "sunken". But once they're covered in icing, no one will know, and everyone will be grateful for an extra roll (or two!).

Be sure to keep the "sunken roll" phenomenon in mind when you're checking rolls for doneness - even when they're baked through, these ones will still look underdone because it will look like they haven't popped up.

The Second Rise

This is an important step of the recipe and some important things should happen. If you skip it or cut it short, your rolls won't be as amazing as they could be.

Once the cinnamon rolls are shaped and cut and sitting happily in a prepared pie or cake pan, cover them and let them rest at room temperature. You'll let them rise for anywhere from 1-4 hours, until they've puffed up significantly.

When it's cold out, I like to do the second rise in our above-range microwave while the light beneath is on. If I do it this way, it will take between 2 and 3 hours.

Be sure they've risen a decent amount before moving on to baking. Otherwise, your rolls won't be as gargantuan as they should be!

Baking

When you're liking how much the rolls have risen, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Bake rolls on the center rack for 30-40 minutes, until they're browned and cooked through. I realize that is a very broad range of time for something like this, but I think it covers the wide range of doneness people like cinnamon rolls cooked to. If you like extra gooey rolls, you'll want to check them near the 30-minute mark. Everyone else can check at around 35 minutes, and if you like them definitively cooked through and browned, around 40 minutes will probably be good for you!

Let them cool slightly in the pan. You want them to be warm, but NOT HOT when you ice them. When you're ready to ice, you can lift them out of the pan using the parchment paper, or leave them in.

A sample schedule (plus some options)

Here is how cinnamon roll prep typically goes if I'm making them fresh:

• In the evening: Start the dough. Rest, knead, cover, and do the first rise overnight.
• In the early morning: Roll, fill, and shape. Do the second rise.
• In the late morning: Bake, ice, and eat.

Alternatively (and much more common!), I like to bake the cinnamon rolls, and make the icing. The cinnamon rolls stay on the counter, covered with foil once they've cooled, and the icing goes in the fridge. The cinnamon rolls are warmed in a 325-degree oven for 15-20 minutes, or until soft and warmed through. Then they're iced. Every bit as good as freshly baked, but so much less effort the morning-of!

Leftovers

Once they're iced, these cinnamon rolls are at their best the same day, but we have happily eaten leftovers reheated in the microwave up to 5 days after baking. (A rare occurrence for them to last that long!).

Baked cinnamon rolls that are un-iced can be stored at room temperature, covered to keep fresh. Iced cinnamon rolls should be kept in the fridge.