Sourdough pumpkin cinnamon rolls give a fall inspired twist to this classic recipe. Pumpkin purée is not only added to the dough, but also combined with butter, sugar, and pumpkin spice and smothered on the dough. You then roll it up, bake until your house smells delicious, and finally, top with cream cheese frosting to arrive at the most decadent, spiced breakfast treat.
Is there any food more classic fall than pumpkin? These delicious, large vegetables grow all summer as we wait for the leaves to start changing, and the weather to start cooling, to enjoy them.
Not only are they beautiful when styled on the front porch, they are also a healthy and delicious veggie to be enjoyed in a variety of ways. And sourdough pumpkin cinnamon rolls may be the most delicious way of all. It’s actually a tie between this recipe and these pumpkin rolls, but sourdough pumpkin cinnamon rolls are generally more acceptable for breakfast or brunch.
I took my sourdough cinnamon rolls and wanted to create an autumn dish incorporating my favorite vegetable, the pumpkin. Not only was it used in the filling by combining pumpkin spice, butter, and brown sugar, but I wanted to also add it to the dough.
It added some serious flavor to the dish, and I promise, the pumpkin spice flavor is not lacking. Would it be too much to serve it with a pumpkin spice latte or a Pumpkin Spice Rooibos Latte?
This makes the best fancy breakfast for a special occasion, or even a fun weekday meal. As a weekday meal, you can start them and get a headstart on chores, like milking the cow, feeding the animals, and rotating pastures.
Whenever you do bake these, I hope your family and friends love this fall influenced treat as much as ours did.
Tips:
- Substitute puréed butternut squash for the pumpkin in this recipe.
- Add toasted chopped walnuts to the pumpkin, and the pumpkin spice filling, for a yummy flavor and texture. Toast walnuts over medium heat in a cast iron skillet, stirring constantly. Turn off heat, add honey, and stir.
- I love to use a pumpkin spice blend in this recipe instead of the typical cinnamon for more delicious fall flavor, but if you don’t have pumpkin spice, you can easily just swap it out with cinnamon.
- For the most health benefits, ferment the dough at least overnight (8 hours) or up to 24 hours. If you don’t have time to ferment the dough, you can just whip it up the morning of and bake.
- Make your own puréed pumpkin using this recipe.
This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you. See my full disclosure here.
Why you’ll love this recipe:
Sourdough: Fermented grains are a super healthy way to eat grains. As they ferment, they become easier to digest and their nutrients become more bioavailable.
Pumpkin spice: The epitome of fall flavors, this dish has it infused throughout, from the dough to the filling. This spice makes it super warm with a delightful heat.
Easy and fancy breakfast: This would make the best Thanksgiving breakfast! One of the best parts is it starts the night before, so in the morning you only have a few minutes of hands-on work. Better than having to wake up super early to start the dough like the typical recipe.
Tools you may need:
Stand mixer
Measuring cups and spoons
Unflavored dental floss
Bench scraper
Cast iron skillet – 14 inch
How To Make Sourdough Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
- In a bowl, combine fed sourdough starter, flour, honey, puréed pumpkin (or butternut squash), water, pumpkin spice, and melted coconut oil.
- Mix together and form into a ball.
- Place the dough in a greased bowl and cover the dough with beeswax wrap or plastic wrap, allowing it to rest in a warm place overnight for 8-24 hours. The longer it ferments, the more that delicious sourdough tang develops and the grain ferments.
The Next Day:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Place the fermented dough into a stand mixer and add eggs, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. You can also use your hands to combine. It is much easier with the stand mixer, but usually I just use my hands.
Create The Filling And Spread It Over The Dough
- In a bowl, combine softened butter, organic brown sugar, pumpkin purée, and pumpkin spice. Stir until smooth.
- Lightly dust the counter with flour, and roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness.
- Spread pumpkin sugar mixture all over the rolled out dough, and top with toasted walnuts (optional). Roll the dough up as tightly as you can. When you get to the end, pull it up as tightly as you can and pinch the ends into the main roll.
Bake
- Slice to make 12-14 total sourdough cinnamon rolls. I like to use unflavored dental floss. You can also just use a knife. Place the rolls into a seasoned 14″ cast iron skillet or a baking dish.
- Pour heavy cream over top of the rolls, then place in the oven to bake.
- Bake them for 20-25 minutes or until the rolls are lightly browned and the dough is cooked through. Allow them to cool a bit.
Cream Cheese Topping
- In a stand mixer, add softened cream cheese, heavy cream, maple syrup or honey, and 2 tsp of vanilla extract. Stir until combined. Use immersion blender to get a smooth result, if desired.
- Pour over pumpkin cinnamon rolls, and enjoy!
How to Store:
Store in an air-tight container in the refrigerator. If you will have extra rolls, I would suggest not adding the cream cheese topping to all of them. This way you can easily reheat them in the oven later and top with the cream cheese topping.
Find More Delicious Sourdough Recipes:
- Sourdough Strawberry Shortcake
- Sourdough Pancakes Recipe
- Breakfast Strata
- Breakfast Pizza Recipe With Sourdough Crust
- Sourdough Cherry Cobbler
- Sourdough Cheddar Waffles
If you try this recipe and love it, I would love if you could come back and give it 5 stars!
Sourdough Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls
Ingredients
Night before:
- 1/2 cup fed sourdough starter
- 1/2 cup water
- 4 1/4 cups unbleached all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup melted coconut oil
- 1/2 cup pumpkin purée
- 1 tablespoon pumpkin spice
- 1/2 cup honey
Next day:
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Cinnamon filling:
- 1/2 cup softened butter
- 1/4 cup pumpkin purée
- 1 cup organic brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon pumpkin spice
Top with before baking:
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
Cream Cheese Topping:
- 6 oz cream cheese
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1/2 cup maple syrup or honey
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Instructions
- In a bowl, combine fed sourdough starter, flour, honey, puréed pumpkin, water, pumpkin spice, and melted coconut oil.
- Mix together and form into a ball.
- Place the dough in a greased bowl and cover the dough with beeswax wrap or plastic wrap, allowing it to rest in a warm place overnight for 8-24 hours.
The Next Day:
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Place the fermented dough into a stand mixer and add eggs, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Mix until combined.
- In a bowl, combine softened butter, organic brown sugar, pumpkin purée, and pumpkin spice. Stir until smooth.
- Lightly dust the counter with flour, and roll out the dough to about 1/4 inch thickness.
- Spread pumpkin sugar mixture all over the rolled out dough, and top with toasted walnuts (optional).
- Roll the dough up as tightly as you can. When you get to the end, pull it up as tightly as you can and pinch the ends into the main roll.
- Slice to make 12-14 total sourdough cinnamon rolls.
- Place the rolls into a seasoned 14″ cast iron skillet or a baking dish.
- Pour heavy cream over top of the rolls, then place in the oven to bake. Bake them for 20-25 minutes or until the rolls are lightly browned and the dough is cooked through. Allow them to cool a bit.
Make Cream Cheese Topping
- In a stand mixer, add softened cream cheese, heavy cream, maple syrup or honey, and 2 tsp of vanilla extract.
- Stir until combined.
- Pour over cinnamon rolls and enjoy.
Notes
- Substitute puréed butternut squash for the pumpkin in this recipe.
- Add toasted chopped walnuts to the pumpkin and pumpkin spice filling for a yummy flavor and texture. Toast walnuts over medium heat in a cast iron skillet, stirring constantly. Turn off heat, add honey, and stir.
- I love to use pumpkin spice in this recipe instead of the typical cinnamon for more delicious fall flavor, but if you don’t have pumpkin spice, you can easily just swap it out with cinnamon.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I am looking to make these for a large crowd and would like to freeze the sliced cinnamon rolls and then bake them later. Do you think this would work? Any tips?
Hi, I’m wondering if the recipe can be made without baking soda and powder and if using active starter is enough for the rise. Thank you
Yes, you can.
Can u substitute milk for the heavy cream?
You can omit the heavy cream! I find it works well with and without it during the baking process. 🙂
Delicious! Whole family loved it. I put everything in it the night before and left it on the counter because I have a hard time incorporating the other ingredients (egg, baking soda, powder, salt) the next day and the cinnamon rolls were still fluffy and delicious.
This turned out delicious! The rolls aren’t very sweet so the icing is a nice touch! Will definitely make again!
I had a problem when adding the egg, it wouldn’t mix. I added more flour. That worked they came out great. I also used coconut sugar. They tasted great!
I had the same issue. The second time around I added all the ingredients at the outset and that worked sooo much better!
These cinnamon rolls have amazing texture and flavor.! The sourdough starter adds so much softness to the dough. I’ve never used coconut oil in my baking so I substituted half of the oil with melted butter. My family devoured these!!
These are different from my usual cinnamon rolls, and I also ended up with a dough which was way too wet to work with. I added around 3/4c of flour after adding the eggs. Next time, I will do half butter and half coconut oil in the dough. I made sure my pan was heavily greased with butter. I love the pumpkin filling!! I enjoy the pumpkin in both the dough and filling, and lots of cinnamon. I didn’t add the heavy cream before baking, and I topped them with some powdered sugar instead of the cream cheese, but I think that part would be good as written if you have cream cheese appreciators in your house. It’s a good recipe, but you might have to make some small changes when you follow it. My kids loved them and they smelled divine!
I have made this recipe several times and shared it with friends. I got a call from my neighbor who said he and his wife have traveled all over the world and thought the Cinnamon Rolls they had in Belize were incredible, but these were the best they had ever tasted. This made me very happy because I started my sourdough journey last August and these rolls were the second thing I had made. It is Thanksgiving Eve and I am getting ready to make these delicious Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls once again! Have a Wonderful Holiday!
These were outstanding! I doubled the recipe. But left out one cup of flour during day one. (I added that the next day with the eggs) When I added the eggs and other ingredients on day two I also added one package of pumpkin pudding mix to the dough. Half of the rolls were a glorious pumpkin roll and the other half I made into pecan pumpkin sticky buns. HUGE HIT. Hands down the best!
Something was really off on this. The evening dough was very thick and solid and adding the eggs in the morning turned it into slimy goo. They just didn’t incorporate, no matter what I tried. I managed to flatten it out and make some attempts to roll it up but they looked and felt like a gooey mess and were not a pretty roll. Flavor was good after I baked but this was not a cinnamon roll dough that could be rolled at all. I should have read the reviews beforehand since it looks like others have had this issue as well. The cream cheese topping was also a bust for me but I didn’t soften it first, since it didn’t say to do that, but think I should have, and nothing incorporated quite right. It was too liquidy with the syrup and cream so I ended up adding a bunch of powdered sugar to thicken it and it was too sweet. Maybe that was user error but I followed the instructions and they didn’t work out for me.
Mine was also a gloopy mess. Wondering if there should be more kneading as well as adding the eggs on the first step to make sure all of the ingredients are well combined.
Great recipe! I need to make it again but for someone allergic to egg. Any ideas for an egg substitute?
I would think that gelled chia seeds or a smashed brown banana would work!
I had the same issue when I added the eggs in the morning. I just added flour until it was roll-able. They turned out really nice. I didn’t bake with the cream, but just added cream cheese frosting.
I use your plain sourdough cinnamon roll recipe and it always works.