German Franzbrötchen are one of my favorite Danish pastries. Probably because they combine the best of croissants and cinnamon buns. They are made from a classic Danish pastry dough, but in this case without yeast and only with sourdough. The sweet rolls are filled with a spicy sugar and cinnamon mixture. I don’t use any additional butter for the filling, but roll over the sugar with a rolling pin so that it sticks to the pastry. I think the croissant dough contains enough butter, but you can also brush the rolled-out dough with melted butter before sprinkling it with sugar and cinnamon.
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Ingredients: What you need for homemade Danish pastry cinnamon rolls
- Wheat flour: Type 550 or Bread Flour.
- Water: Cold in summer and lukewarm in winter.
- Sourdough starter: It is not necessary to constantly feed the sourdough starter fresh, but the last refreshment should not be longer than a week ago. If you have a sourdough discard I will be happy to provide you with suitable recipes. My personal method is to feed my sourdough with an equal amount of water and flour. I use a mixture of wheat flour and wholemeal rye flour. If you choose a different water-to-flour ratio for your sourdough, remember to adjust the amount of water in the recipe accordingly. Here are some helpful tips to keep your sourdough starter vital and healthy at all times.
- Soft butter or vegan butter for the dough and for the butter layer.
- Sugar, cinnamon and salt for flavor.
In three steps: How to make Franzbrötchen with sourdough
You can find a detailed schedule for Danish pastry dough with sourdough in my sourdough croissant recipe. There you will also find explanations and helpful tips on laminating.
- Mix all the ingredients to form a dough and leave to rest overnight. Prepare a sheet of butter and place in the fridge overnight.
- Laminate the dough with three rounds, roll out into a rectangle and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Roll up the dough, divide into twelve pieces and press the middle down with a wooden spoon.
- Leave the cinnamon rolls to rest and bake until crispy.
Three questions on Danish pastry cinnamon rolls
Franzbrötchen are usually made from a Danish pastry dough. Danish pastry is a yeast dough (or a sweet sourdough) with layers of butter or fat. This creates the classic flaky texture that is also typical of croissants.
Franzbrötchen and cinnamon rolls differ in their dough and shape. Cinnamon rolls are made from a yeast dough and French rolls are made from Danish pastry. Cinnamon rolls are also baked with the open side up. Franzbrötchen are shaped by placing them closed side down on a baking tray and pressing them down with the handle of a wooden spoon.
French rolls taste best fresh. You can re-bake them the next day or freeze them immediately after baking, but they won’t be as delicious as on the first day even after defrosting.
Helpful tools – My recommendations
✨ The links with an star* are affiliate links. If you click on one of these links and buy something, I get a small commission and you support my work (thanks for that 🧡). This does not change the price for you. You can find more information on privacy policy here.✨
- A Danish Whisk* – especially if you don’t use a kitchen machine. This allows you to mix your ingredients without the whole dough sticking to the spoon.
- A kitchen scale*.
- A wooden rolling pin*.
- A steam tray consisting of a stainless steel oven mould* and lava stones*. The tray is filled with the stones and placed on the bottom of the oven during preheating. When you put your bread in the oven, pour hot water onto the stones. This creates steam, which ensures that your bread rises well.
- A cooling rack* for bread, rolls and waffles.
- A pizza cutter* for sweet knots, croissants etc.
- A sharp bread knife*.
You can find more product recommendations here.
More Sourdough Danish pastries
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Homemade Danish Sourdough Pastry with Cheese Filling and Rhubarb
I’m totally in Danish pastry fever! I haven’t dared to try croissant dough or Danish pastry for a long time, but once you get the hang of it, you want to bake Danish pastries with sourdough every weekend. Last weekend I decided to make Danish pastry with a cheese…
Step by Step Sourdough Pain au Chocolat – French Chocolate Croissants
Danish pastry is a real all-rounder! In this blog post, I’ll show you how to bake crispy, flaky sourdough pain au chocolat. You can also use the same dough to make german Franzbrötchen, vanilla danish pastry, sourdough croissants or danish pastry with cheese filling….
Recipe: The Best Danish Pastry Cinnamon Rolls with Sourdough – German Franzbrötchen
Ingredients
- Ingredients
- 300 g water
- 50 g sourdough starter
- 500 g wheat flour
- 50 g soft butter or vegan butter
- 25 g sugar
- 1 tsp salt
Butter Layer
- 200 g soft butter or vegan butter
- 40 g wheat flour
Other
- egg or milk or a plant-based milk
- 100 g sugar
- 3 tsp. cinnamon
Instructions
Day 1
- For the dough, mix the flour, water, sugar, salt, butter and sourdough starter.
- Cover the dough and leave to rest at room temperature for about an hour. Then stretch and fold once.
- In winter, leave the dough to rest overnight at room temperature. In summer, leave the dough to rest for two to three hours at room temperature and then refrigerate overnight.
- For the butter layer, mix 200g soft butter with 40g flour. Then place in the centre of a sheet of baking paper. Fold the baking paper around the butter so that a 20 x 20 centimetre square of butter is enclosed in the baking paper. A rolling pin helps with this.
- Place the butter layer in the fridge overnight.
Day 2
- Roll out the dough into a square and place the butter plate (without the baking paper) in the centre of the dough. Fold the corners of the dough around the butter plate to form an envelope.
- First round: Carefully flatten the dough with a rolling pin* and roll out until you have an elongated rectangle.
- Fold in a third of the dough on the left-hand side and fold the right-hand third over it so that there are three equal layers of dough on top of each other.
- Wrap the dough in a tea towel and place in the fridge for 30 minutes.
- Then unwrap the dough again, carefully flatten with a rolling pin* and roll out into a long rectangle.
- For the second round, fold the rectangle in again to create three layers of dough.
- Perform a total of three rounds. Place the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes between batches.
- After the third round, the dough is rolled out into a large rectangle.
- Sprinkle the dough with the sugar and cinnamon mixture and roll over again with a rolling pin to fix the sugar to the dough.
- Roll up the dough under tension and divide the dough roll into approx. 12 pieces.
- Place the Franzbrötchen on a baking tray and press in with the handle of a wooden spoon to create the classic Franzbrötchen shape.
- Cover the French rolls with a cloth and leave to rest for one to two hours.
- Preheat the oven to 230 degrees using a steam tray consisting of a stainless steel oven dish* and lava stones* and bake the Franzbrötchen for 10 minutes with steam and 20 minutes without steam until crispy.
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