Sweet Buttery Sourdough Crescent Rolls

Adapted from Cooking with Carlee … this recipe is a mashup of two of her recipes.

A puffy sweet buttery crescent roll that’s WAY better (and healthier) than the crescent rolls in a can. These little rolls are perfect for wrapping up your cocktail wienies or serving with dinner.

In fact, it was cocktail wienies that made these rolls happen in our house. One day we were at Costco and they were sampling little smokies wrapped in crescent roll dough. My boy totally wanted them. I caved and bought him the smokies … and then went to the grocery store and bought one can of crescent dough. He made up the first batch of the little piggies in blankets himself, but he told me the preservatives in the canned dough totally ruined the taste. I said well, then, we’re just going to have to find a recipe and make them ourselves then! And so we did.

Because these rolls contain sourdough, you get the health benefits of sourdough, but they don’t taste sour at all–they’re sweet and buttery with a lovely soft texture. There’s a bit of active dry yeast too in these little rolls to help them poof up more quickly. I made them mini-sized because I thought it would be super cute to have bite-sized crescent rolls, but you can make them bigger if you want.

Another awesome thing about this dough is you can divide it into three, make one of those into rolls for now and wrap the other two in plastic wrap and store them in the fridge for a few days, until you’re wanting fresh crescent rolls again. It’s SO nice to be able to pull out the dough from the fridge and (relatively quickly) bake up some nice hot fresh crescent rolls.

Where to get sourdough starter?

You can buy it or beg some off a friend (because once you’ve started making sourdough, you’ve always got extra starter to use up) or make it yourself … all it takes is flour and water and time! (Don’t discard the starter when you feed your starter like they tell you in the sourdough recipe … use it in your bread, waffles or pancakes … or make crackers or pizza crust. No need to waste it!) … I think a simple sponge would probably work just as well for this recipe, if you can’t be troubled to take the time to make a sourdough. To make a sponge: mix 1 cup whole wheat flour, 1 cup water, 1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon yeast. Mix in a bowl and let sit on the counter for at least 12 hours until active and bubbly.

I used Kerrygold grass fed butter in this recipe which is rich in vitamin K2 and good for your heart. So even though these rolls are all white flour and they are brushed with butter, you don’t have to feel guilty for eating them (as part of a healthy balanced diet).

Once you’ve made the dough and rolled it out into a flat circle, brush it with butter and cut it into 8-12 pie pieces. I cut mine in fourths, and then cut each wedge into three to make 12 rolls.

Roll up from the wide end, place on the baking sheet and brush with butter again before setting in a warm place to rise (a.k.a, proof) for 45 minutes to an hour.

For proofing, I like to turn my oven on to the lowest setting (for me that’s 170F) and then once it’s preheated, turn the oven off and switch on the oven light. This is the perfect rising temperature for bread.

Once the crescents are nice and puffy (about double in size), it’s time to bake … they bake up in just 15 – 20 minutes. Hot, fresh, perfectly puffy, lightly sweet and totally buttery crescent rolls. Ditch the canned crescent rolls! These are SO much better.

My son found another use for these rolls too … he likes to make tuna (mixing tuna with mayo & yellow mustard) and use these little rolls as dippers. He says the sweetness of the dough is just perfect with the salty tuna. I tried one and oh man I totally agree! I had a hard time refraining from eating more. This has become a regular thing at my house now: my boy eats tuna and crescent rolls. Oh, and I have to tell you that my daughter loves the rolls too, especially the mini version. She’s not into tuna and definitely has no interest in the little smokies, just the rolls, plain, with nothing on them.

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