Re-ignited My Love For Sourdough Baking

As the weather is finally cooling down (a bit) here in Hong Kong, I started to bake more sourdough bread. This sourdough pumpkin cinnamon rolls is one of your all-time-favorite recipes on my blog. Since I always love experimenting with different recipe, I recently discovered a new way to make these vegan sourdough cinnamon rolls fluffier and soft.

Yudane Method

These sourdough cinnamon rolls have the texture that resemble most Japanese bread – super soft and fluffy. As I learned more about sourdough baking over the past year, I came across the Yudane Method. Yudane method is the secret to make a soft and fluffy Japanese style bread. In order to bake using this method, you simply mix an equal portion of flour and boiling water. The effect of adding boiling water to flour is that it gelatinises the starch. The gelatinised starch will allow the starch to absorb more water, and thus enhancing the sweetness of the bread.

Yudane method is in fact similar to the Tangzhong method I used in my sourdough milk bread recipe. Unlike the 1:1 flour-to-water ratio in Yudane method, the Tangzhong mixture is made by heating up a mixture of flour and water in the ratio of 1:5 to 65°C.

Inspiration

This recipe is inspired by the no sour sourdough recipe by the amazing Autumn Kitchen. If you are want to naturally leaven your bread without the sourness, this recipe is perfect you.

Filling

Nothing beats the smell of homemade pumpkin butter infused with lots of pumpkin spice and maple syrup! 🍁When it comes to fall, there is no such thing as too much pumpkins right? Also, as pumpkin has a hint of sweetness, using pumpkin butter as the filling can greatly reduce the amount of sugar when compared with traditional filling. It means that we got to eat more cinnamon rolls without feeling guilty. 🤣

If you don’t have access to pumpkin butter, simply use your normal cinnamon roll fillings. I personally love how the pumpkin butter gives me a warm and cozy feeling. 😌 Plus you can use the leftover pumpkin butter on all sort of things, such as spread on toasts or make my pumpkin baked oats and pumpkin sourdough pancakes with it.

Ancient Grains In Sweet Dough

For almost every sourdough I bake, I will usually add 10-30% of ancient grains in my recipes. And spelt and kamut are my two favorite grains to use. 🌾 Some people might be reluctant to use whole grain flour in sweet bread, as whole grain bread are usually tough and dry. Fortunately, as I use both Yudane and sourdough in this recipe, these sourdough cinnamon rolls are not only moist and fluffy, but it also has a hint of nuttiness and earthy flavor. The ancient grains provided a more varied and complex flavor profile, hence greatly improved the depth of flavor of these rolls.

Serving Suggestions

As the dough itself is already sweet enough, these rolls need no frosting. However, I do enjoy drizzling some chocolate tahini on top. This chocolate tahini is my recent favorite spread. I love it so much that I use it on literally everything sweet, toasts, smoothie bowls, overnight oats etc.