I decided to do a little experiment: I took Joy the Baker’s delicious, yeasted, Small Batch Pull-Apart King Cake Muffins and converted them to use sourdough starter using Emilie Raffa’s Soft Sourdough Cinnamon Rolls recipe as inspiration for the modifications needed. The results were a lovely mash-up!
Makes 10-ish muffins.
Ingredients
Dough
100g Starter (active and bubbly)
19 g sugar, white
1 large egg
0.5 tsp vanilla extract
30 g unsalted butter, melted
75 g buttermilk, lightly warmed
230 g all-purpose flour
0.25 tsp salt
Filling
100 g sugar, white
2 g ground cinnamon
0.25 tsp ground nutmeg
3 tbsp butter, melted (Reserve 1 tbsp for drizzling just before baking)
Glaze
1.5 tbsp whole milk
0.25 tsp lemon extract
0.5 cup icing sugar
Instructions
- Combine the melted butter and buttermilk in a small bowl. Cool slightly before using.
- Add the egg, sourdough starter, vanilla extract, and sugar to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix to combine.
- With the machine running, slowly pour in the buttermilk/butter mixture.
- Slowly add the flour and salt. Continue mixing until a rough, sticky dough forms, about 1 minute.
- Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Cover with a damp towel and let rest for 30 minutes.
- After the dough has rested, switch to the dough hook. Knead on low speed for 6-8 minutes. The dough should feel soft, supple and pull away from the sides of the bowl when ready. If it’s too sticky, add a small amount of flour.
- Transfer the dough to a medium-size bowl coated in butter. Cover with plastic wrap. Let rise overnight at room temperature (~20 degrees C), or until double in size, about 8-12 + hrs.
- When risen, whisk together the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg for the filling. Set aside. Melt butter. Set aside. Lightly grease 6 cups of a muffin pan (I put mine in silicone muffin cups).
- On a lightly floured work surface, use a rolling pin to roll the dough out to 1/4-inch thickness. Use a pastry brush to spread melted butter across all of the dough. Reserve about a tablespoon of butter to sprinkle over the top before baking. Sprinkle the rolled dough with all of the sugar and cinnamon mixture. It might seem like a lot of sugar but you’re doing it right. You’ll lose some sugar to the countertop.
- Slice the dough into squares about 2-inches each. Carefully stack 4 of the sugar squares on top of one another. Place the stack edges up in a prepared muffin cup. Don’t forget to use all the side scraps as well if you have those.
- Cover with a damp towel and let rest for about 2 hours, or until the dough puffs up.
- Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.
- Sprinkle remaining butter over the tops of the pastry stacks.
- Place the pan in the oven and allow to bake for 18 to 20 minutes until golden and bubbling. Remove from the oven and allow to rest until the muffins cool enough to handle. Transfer to a cooling rack
- Whisk together powdered sugar, milk and lemon extract to a pourable stream. Drizzle over cooled cake and top with yellow, green, and purple sprinkles.
Bakers Timing
Day 1
08:00 – Feed starter
20:00 – Make dough
Rise overnight
Day 2
08:00 – Shape dough
09:30 – Preheat oven (adjust based on how quickly your oven pre-heats)
10:00 – Bake
When cool, glaze and sugar!