This sourdough pumpkin roll pairs fluffy, sweet, spiced sourdough cake with a delicious, cream cheese filling. Literally, the best fall treat.
I love pumpkin rolls and I think they are insanely delicious, but I wanted a long fermented option.
Creating sourdough recipes is one of my favorite things to do. It’s like adding a health benefit to ordinary foods.
Like, “Hey, Pumpkin Cake, lets make you healthier and more bioavailable with some fermentation. Thank you.” Then you top it with sweet, cream cheese filling.
All joking aside, this recipe hits the fall pumpkin spot. Everything you love about a fall recipe is right here.
The delicious pumpkin spice, the light tang of sourdough in a cake, all smothered with a naturally-sweetened, maple cream cheese filling and rolled up in a perfect spiral.
Plus, your house will smell amazing from baking the cake. Like a giant, spiced candle wafting through your home.
If you are new to sourdough, make sure to check out how to make a sourdough starter first.
Benefits Of Sourdough
Sourdough has many benefits. From better digestion to better nutrient absorption, it’s easy to see why it has regained popularity.
The fermentation process allows the natural yeasts in the starter to ferment the grain and break down the anti-nutrients. The anti-nutrient, phytic acid, breaks down and increases certain nutrients like folate, and helps other nutrients to be more bioavailable. (source)
Tips For Making Sourdough Pumpkin Rolls:
- To get the pumpkin roll to not crack when rolling, roll the cake up as soon as it comes out of the oven with the parchment paper and allow to cool in that position. Unroll, add icing, then roll back up.
- If you don’t have pumpkin spice, you can make your own by mixing together ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. You could also just use cinnamon.
- The cake has 1/2 cup of sugar to make it a bit sweeter, but if you want a less sweet cake, you can just leave it out.
- Use sucanat, rapadura, or even coconut sugar for a more naturally-sweetened recipe. But if you don’t have these, regular sugar will work just fine.
- You can use an active sourdough starter or even sourdough discard.
- Don’t want to ferment the recipe? That is totally fine. Just mix and bake.
This post contains affiliate links, which means I make a small commission at no extra cost to you. See my full disclosure here.
Tools you may need:
Large bowl
Baking sheet
Parchment paper
Measuring cups and spoons
Grain mill (optional)
How To Make Sourdough Pumpkin Rolls With Cream Cheese Frosting
Make The Sourdough Pumpkin Cake
The night before, mix together flour, active sourdough starter, 1/2 cup pumpkin, and maple syrup. Cover and allow to ferment for at least 8 hours, or up to 24 hours.
The next day, add to the cake mixture the salt, eggs, vanilla, and sucanat. Mix until well incorporated. A stand mixer will make this much easier.
Sprinkle baking soda evenly and mix in.
Spread evenly on a 13 by 18 inch sheet pan lined with parchment paper.
Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes.
Roll The Cake
Once done, pull from the oven and test that it has baked through with a toothpick.
In order to avoid the cake cracking later when you roll it up with the cream cheese, roll it in the parchment paper as soon as it comes out of the oven (be careful, because it’s hot). Allow it to cool while rolled.
Create Maple Cream Cheese Filling
While the cake is cooling, combine the cream cheese frosting ingredients with a mixer until incorporated and smooth.
Put Together The Sourdough Pumpkin Roll
Carefully unroll the cooled cake, spread on the cream cheese filling evenly, and roll it back up.
Slice and enjoy.
How To Store A Pumpkin Roll
Store the pumpkin roll in the refrigerator until ready to serve. It will last 3-5 days in the fridge.
You can also freeze it for up to 3 months. Wrap tightly with plastic wrap and freeze.
Thaw at least 18-24 hours before serving.
Find More Delicious Sourdough Recipes:
- Cinnamon Maple Sourdough Apple Pie
- Einkorn Sourdough Bread
- Sourdough Brownies
- Easy Sourdough Banana Bread
- Sourdough Chocolate Rolls
If you try this recipe and love it, I would love if you gave it 5 stars! Thank you! Tag me on Instagram @farmhouseonboone
Sourdough Pumpkin Roll
Ingredients
Pumpkin Cake
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 1/2 cup puréed pumpkin
- 1/2 cup maple syrup or honey
- 1/2 cup sourdough starter, or discard
- 3 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3 eggs
- 2 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
Filling
- 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1/4 cup butter, softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup powdered sugar, plus more for dusting
Instructions
- The night before, mix together flour, active sourdough starter, 1/2 cup pumpkin and maple syrup. Cover and allow to ferment for at least 8 hours, or up to 24 hours.
- The next day, add to the cake mixture the salt, eggs, vanilla, pumpkin spice and sucanat. Mix until well incorporated.
- Sprinkle baking soda evenly and mix in.
- Spread evenly on a 13×18 inch sheet pan lined with parchment paper.
- Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes.
- Once done, pull from the oven and test that it has baked through with a toothpick.
- Roll it in the parchment paper as soon as it comes out of the oven (be careful, because it's hot).
- Allow the cake to cool while rolled.
- While the cake is cooling, combine the cream cheese frosting ingredients with a mixer until incorporated and smooth.
- Carefully unroll the cooled cake, spread on the cream cheese filling evenly, and roll it back up.
- Slice and serve or place in the fridge until you are ready to serve.
Notes
- To get the pumpkin rolls to not crack when rolling, roll the cake up as soon as it comes out of the oven with the parchment paper and allow to cool in that position. Unroll, add icing, then roll back up.
- You can use homemade or canned pumpkin.
- Don’t want to ferment the recipe? That is totally fine. Just mix and bake
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I love this recipe!
This is my second time making this.
The one thing I would suggest is for the directions to include the adding of “pumpkin spice” in the instructions. I know it’s clearly written in the list of ingredients, but I forgot to incorporate it into the batter this time around!
I ended up adding the spice to the frosting instead which worked out just fine 🙂
We have actually made this a few times now. And this recipe is absolutely delicious!! We use coconut palm sugar as our sweetener. The only other thing, that I adjusted, was that I only baked for about 10ish minutes. That allowed the cake to remain moist.😁 I always appreciate these recipes and cannot wait to try the cobblers soon!!
This turned out great! We loved it. Will definitely make again!
I made this the other day and it was a win, everyone liked it. I’m putting this in my recipe binder. Thank you.
I just made this today and fell in love…what a wonderful way to use up sourdough discard in the autumn months! I adore all your recipes…currently finding all the sourdough extra helpful right now since I’m just beginning on the “sourdough journey” 🙏🏼 Thanks for sharing such helpful content!
yay! I’m so happy to hear that!
made this last night and had it for breakfast with some coffee of course. It is delicious! that cream cheese frosting I could eat by itself!!! I love your recipes. Since I have pumpkin left over, I had to roast one. I think I’ll try the pumpkin acorn soup!!!
Did not like the recipe. The filling is missing something, it was very runny. When I rolled the cake after spreading the filling on, it oozed out of the sides. I do not recommend this recipe.
If you refrigerate the filling for a little bit, it will be thicker and not ooze out of the sides.
I had the same experience even after refrigerating. I’m thinking of using maple sugar or maybe powdered sugar instead.
I had the exact same experience. Even with refrigerating.
I never leave comments but felt I must. This recipe has created the most scrumptious autumnal cake and so so worth trying. Incredibly satisfying to find another delicious recipe for my sourdough starter 👌🏻
awe yay!
I will be giving this a try for sure, I love pumpkin roll and this looks easy and delicious.
What can be used if you don’t have the sour dough starter, in the notes it says (or discard) what does that mean?
This recipe calls for active sourdough starter or sourdough discard which is the portion that is removed after a starter has been fed, became active, and then fell back down. Unfortunately, I don’t know if you could substitute anything in place of the starter.
The print link for the sourdough pumpkin roll takes us back to the top of the page. Please could you fix? Sounds like a great holiday dessert.