Sourdough Cinnamon Roll Christmas Tree Pull Apart

SOURDOUGH CINNAMON ROLLS CHRISTMAS TREE PULL APART - RECIPE FEATURE IMAGE

Sourdough Cinnamon Roll Christmas Tree Pull Apart

The softest cinnamon rolls shaped into a Christmas Tree pull apart sweet bread, slathered in vanilla cream cheese frosting. It's the perfect share platter for all of your festive events!

Course Dessert

Cuisine American

Keyword Sourdough Recipes

Prep Time 1

Cook Time 25

Fermentation Time 12

Total Time 13 25

Servings Rolls

Calories 440kcal

Equipment

Rolling Pin
Large Cookie Sheet
Pastry Brush

Ingredients

Dough

500 g Bread Flour
100 g Sourdough Starter Fed and bubbly (see notes for discard option)
220 g Milk Warm (37C)
7 g Salt
2 Egg Yolks
50 g Sugar Caster/Fine Sugar
50 g Butter soft, salted or unsalted

Cinnamon Filling

1 Egg
20 g Milk
100 g Brown Sugar Light or Dark
15 g Cinnamon ground
10 g All Purpose Flour

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

125 g Cream Cheese Block - not spreadable
25 g Butter Cold
100 g Powdered Sugar
5 g Vanilla Extract
1 pinch Salt

Instructions

To make the dough

Warm the milk to around 37C. Add the warm milk and sugar to a bowl and whisk until sugar is dissolved.
Now add your egg yolks and sourdough starter to the mixture and whisk until they are well beaten and blended through the milk and sugar.
To this add your flour and salt and bring together into a rough dough. Allow the dough to sit, covered at room temperature, for around half an hour.
Now, tip the shaggy dough out onto the counter and knead it a little.
Add the butter, little by little, kneading it into the dough until all the butter has been used up (see notes for using a stand mixer for this if you prefer not to do it by hand).
The dough should be fairly soft and elastic, but not sticky.
Transfer to the dough to a bowl and allow to ferment, covered with some plastic wrap or elastic food cover.. You want the dough to rise a little (around 30%) and feel soft to the touch. This needs to happen at room temp - not in the fridge.
Once the dough has finished bulk ferment, you will need to fill and shape the cinnamon rolls.

Rolling and Filling the Dough

Before you roll out the dough, take the egg and milk and whisk together to create an egg wash. Set this aside.
In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar, cinnamon and flour and mix together until it resembles beach sand (it's quite dry and that's ok).
Turn the dough out on to the counter. It shouldn't be sticky and be easy the handle. Do not use flour when rolling out the dough.
Divide the dough into two pieces and roll each one out into a rectangle (around 30cm long by 15cm wide).
Using a pastry brush, brush egg wash onto the whole surface of the dough rectangles.
Now spread the filling all over the dough, leaving a 2cm gap on one of the long edges. You need to leave a gap so that dough will stick to itself when you roll it.
Once the filling is spread, roll the dough into a log, starting on the opposite long edge to the gap you've left.
Roll the dough into a tight log, using the unfilled dough to seal the log.
Lay the log out with the seam underneath.
Cut each log into approximately 10 cinnamon rolls. A metal dough scraper is perfect for this.
Take a cookie sheet that has been lined with parchment paper and arrange the sourdough cinnamon rolls into the shape of a Christmas tree. Try to get the seams of each cinnamon roll facing inwards so that they don't come undone when they are baked.
Gently press the rolls down with your fingers to fill the Christmas tree shape out.

Second Rise

Cover the tray with a damp kitchen towel and leave the sourdough cinnamon rolls to proof. You want them to be nice and puffy before you bake them.
Once the dough is puffy, you can bake them straight away - or see baking timeline above to extend the second rise and hold them in the fridge overnight.

Baking

Once the rolls are puffy, it's time to bake them. Preheat your oven to 180C/356F.
Bake rolls for 30 minutes at 180C/356F. Keep an eye on them though as they will burn easily due to the sugar.
Once they're finished baking, leave them to cool on the tray for around 10 minutes before transferring them to a platter or cooling rack.
You can brush them with butter to give them a nice glaze. You can leave them unbuttered if you prefer. The butter will give them a nice shine.

Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting

Add cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, vanilla and salt to a mixing bowl and beat the frosting until it's thick and glossy (you can use a whisk or spatula). Alternatively you can use a stand mixer to make the frosting. Store in the fridge until ready to use.
Once the rolls have cooled a little (I leave it about 30 minutes) smother them in the vanilla cream cheese frosting. You can use a vanilla glaze or even just dust them in icing sugar if you prefer.
For the photos you can see in this recipe, I've used a piping bag with a star tip.

Notes

Sourdough Discard - if you prefer to use sourdough discard for this recipe, use 100g of sourdough discard plus 7g of instant yeast, added when you add the discard to the milk and sugar mixture (you can also use active dry, but you'll need to bloom it first - it's best to add this when you add the milk and sugar together).

Thermomix - You can easily use a thermomix to make this recipe. Utilise the dough/knead function to mix and knead the dough. If you are using a Thermomix, you can add all the ingredients at once and then knead for 4 to 5 minutes.

Using a Stand Mixer - You can definitely use a stand mixer for this recipe if you prefer. This does make adding the butter much easier. Butter is the last ingredient to add to the dough before it's left to bulk ferment. You may need to increase the speed of your mixer to get the butter to incorporate. It's best to add it in 10g increments. The dough may look greasy/slimy at first but persevere, it will incorporate if you give it enough time. The dough behaves much like brioche in this respect.

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