I still remember the first time I ate an orange roll. My mom had baked up a batch of cinnamon rolls. To my mild horror, I watched as she topped those beautiful rolls with an orange frosting. You see, my dad thought that orange zest tasted like a garbage pail. But my mom knew what was up. She ignored his complaints, because she fancied an orange roll!
I gave in and tasted one, even though my dad’s voice was in the back of my head telling me it was going to be gross. And of course it was actually scrumptious. Something about that fresh citrus flavor melting into the cinnamon roll was sublime.
Fast forward about 20 years, and I’m still a big fan of orange rolls. This time around, I decided to add some tangy cranberries to the mix, because they pair so beautifully with the sweet-but-a-little-bit-sour oranges. Since I’m obsessed with everything sourdough at the moment, I had to use a naturally leaved dough as the base.
But enough chit-chat: let’s get into making these Sourdough Cranberry Orange Rolls!
You’ll want to start by mixing up the dough. Since it’s sourdough, you need to prep it a couple of days before you intend to bake/eat the rolls. There are a couple of options for doing this:
Bake immediately: The morning before you plan to bake, feed your sourdough starter. 8 hours later (that evening), mix together the dough. Let it rise overnight. The next morning, fill and shape the rolls, let rise for 2–4 hours, and bake.
Refrigerator Rise: 2 nights before you plan to bake, feed your sourdough starter. The next morning, mix together the dough. Let rise 8 hours. In the evening, fill and shape the rolls and place in a pan. Cover and place in the refrigerator overnight. The next morning, pull out of the fridge and let rise at room temperature for 1–2 hours. Bake.
I also tried freezing the unbaked rolls and then thawing on the counter for 12 hours and baking. It wasn’t terrible, but the texture definitely wasn’t as nice. So it isn’t a method that I recommend for these rolls.
I’m sure you could use a sweet dough risen with commercial yeast if you aren’t into sourdough. I’ll bet the dough from Ree’s Blueberry Lemon Sweet Rolls would be perfect! Just make sure to scale up the filling and frosting ingredients since Ree’s recipe makes 24 rolls, and this recipe makes 9.
Okay, now that you have your dough sorted, let’s make the cranberry filling! Put fresh (or frozen) cranberries, orange juice, and sugar in a small saucepan.
Simmer for 10 minutes. Mash with a small potato masher to break up the cranberries. You don’t necessarily want the “jam” to be super smooth, but you also don’t want it to have huge chunks of cranberries.
Add the zest of an orange, stir, and set aside to cool. If you’re in a rush, you can put it in the fridge to speed up the cooling process.
When your dough has risen properly (it should double in bulk), it’s time to roll it out! First deflate it by pulling the 4 edges toward the center, similar to the folding method described in my How to Make Artisan Sourdough Bread post. Let the dough rest for 15 minutes to give the gluten a chance to relax.
Roll the dough out to about 16×12 inches. If it becomes too difficult to work with, let it rest for 10–15 minutes and try again.
Spread the surface of the dough with 2 tablespoons of soft butter. I don’t recommend melting and brushing the butter as this can lead to a mess. It works well to use melted butter for cinnamon rolls because the cinnamon-sugar mixture soaks it up nicely. But since we’re using a jam for the filling, it’s better if the butter is in a more solid state.
Now spread the cranberry-orange jam evenly across the dough.
Make sure to leave about 1/2-inch of untouched dough all around the edges. Otherwise the jam tends to squeeze out the ends while you’re rolling it up.
Working from the long edge, roll up the dough gently but tightly. If that makes sense. You want the dough to be rolled tightly, but you want to deflate it as little as possible.
Now gingerly cut the dough into 9 rolls.
They should be about 1 1/2 inches wide. I had a straggler at the end, but fear not! I baked it separately and we ate it. If I hadn’t been making these for a blog post, I would have shoved it right in with the rest of the rolls.
Place the rolls in a parchment-lined 9-inch square baking dish. You could use a springform pan or deep dish pie plate if you prefer.
Now it’s time for the second rise! This can take anywhere from 2–4 hours.
In my chilly kitchen it took 3 hours for the rolls to get to this state. You can see that they didn’t puff up dramatically, but they did visibly rise. In the previous photo there was space between them, and in this photo they’re touching.
As you can see, once you bake the rolls they will rise quite a bit more. Sourdough tends to have a good “oven spring,” so even though it may seem like they don’t rise much, they’ll puff up more in the oven.
With these cranberry orange rolls, it’s important to make sure that you bake them long enough. Since the filling is more wet than your typical cinnamon roll, the dough has a harder time getting cooked enough. Make sure the rolls are a nice, deep golden brown on top, and the dough portion registers 200° F on an instant read thermometer. The underside of the rolls may get pretty dark, but that’s okay!
Once the rolls have cooled for a bit (or as long as you can stand to wait), it’s time to frost them! I’ve included a recipe for a cream cheese orange drizzle, but you could use a traditional orange icing if you prefer.
Serve warm with a spread of butter.
These would be perfect for a Christmas brunch! Or if you could serve them to overnight guests and look oh-so-accomplished.
Here’s the printable recipe for the rolls: Sourdough Cranberry Orange Rolls
Finally, I’m curious: did your mom/dad ever make a recipe even if they knew your dad/mom hated it?
