Hi Margie, Thank you for taking the time to leave feedback on the high-hydration sourdough cinnamon rolls. I’m sorry to hear the recipe didn’t meet your expectations—your experience is important to me, and I truly appreciate your detailed insights! The cinnamon rolls are designed to be large and billowy, and the recipe makes 12 that fit snugly into a 9×13 pan. You can absolutely cut them thinner and make more rolls that are smaller, though! While it sounds like you preferred making 16 rolls and using additional pans, the original recipe has been thoroughly tested to fit and bake evenly as written. I strive to balance the filling so it adds a gooey, rich flavor without leaking, and I’m sorry to hear your results were different. Factors such as pan material, rolling technique, or bake time can sometimes cause variations. It is important that the butter is completely room temperature before it is mixed with the cream and spread on the dough, and that the rolls are baked straight from the oven so that the filling is cold to help minimize seeping. I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed the challah recipe—it’s one of my favorites, too! I hope you’ll give these cinnamon rolls another shot, as the base dough creates such soft, fluffy rolls that many readers have loved. If you have any questions or need tips, please don’t hesitate to reach out—I’m always happy to help!

Yes, all purpose flour! You want these rolls to be nice and soft and fluffy, and bread flour would make them too hearty.

I’m glad I used a fraction of the vanilla called for in the dough and the icing as it would have overpowered the cinnamon flavor. If you want to bake in a conventional 13×9 pan, you should cut the recipe by 1/3. I decided to make 16 rolls in 13×9 and 8” pans and am glad I did. There was way way too much filling!! I had a huge pool of brown sugar at the bottom of the pans. Cut in half at least and increase the ratio of cinnamon to sugar. I’ve had best luck with recipes that have a little flour in the filling to help keep it from melting out. I love the delicious challah recipe on this site and wrote a good review for that since it’s my go to challah bread recipe. But I’ll sadly be throwing away the cinnamon rolls I made with this recipe.

Hi Hannah! You bet! I would recommend starting with my other sourdough cinnamon roll recipe (you can search for it with the search box!) This particular recipe you are commenting on uses a high hydration dough and is tricky to work with! The other recipe uses cups as measurements and is much easier to work with!