Cardamom Orange Knots
If you were to ask me, cinnamon roll or cardamom bun, the adult me answers "cardamom bun" every time. But the kid me would be asking "what's a cardamom?" I have, without remorse or a look back at my childhood love, fallen hard for the Swedish kardemummabullar or cardamom bun. I have yet to make it to Sweden to try the most authentic kardemummabullar but I have sampled every version I come across at the local artisan bakeries I find while travelling. I am particularly fond of the knot version, kardemummaknutar. Clearly, I am not alone in this regard considering the number of cardamom knot tying reels that drop into my Instagram feed.
Equipment
- Two six-hole Texas muffin tins
- Digital kitchen scales
- Large silicone mat (at least 45cm x 30cm)
- Large rolling pin (at least 35cm long)
- Instant read thermometer
Ingredients
Foundation sweet dough
Tangzhong:
- 35 g all-purpose flour
- 120 g full cream milk
- ½ teaspoon table salt
Dough:
- 60 g white sugar
- 2 oranges
- 350 g full cream milk
- 1 large egg
- 575 g all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon instant yeast
- 115 g unsalted butter
Cardamom filling:
- 120 g unsalted butter
- 200 g dark brown sugar
- 1 ½ tablespoons ground cardamom seeds
- ¼ teaspoon table salt
Cardamom sugar:
- 200 g white sugar
- 2 tablespoons ground cardamom seeds
Egg wash:
- 2 egg yolks
- 1-2 tablespoons cream or milk
Instructions
What to make ahead
Make the tangzhong:
- Weigh 35g all-purpose flour and 120g full cream milk into a small pan and add ½ teaspoon table salt.
- Heat over medium low heat while whisking until the mixture forms a thick paste.
- Remove from the heat, transfer to a small bowl or container and chill until slightly cold.
Make and knead the foundation sweet dough:
- Weigh 60g white sugar into the bowl of a stand mixer and zest 2 oranges over the bowl using a Microplane.
- Using the paddle attachment, mix on medium for 2 minutes until zest is well incorporated into the sugar.
- Add the tangzhong, 350g full cream milk, 1 large egg, 575g all-purpose flour, and 1 tablespoon instant yeast.
- Mix on low with the dough hook until combined.
- Increase speed to medium and knead for at least 5 minutes to develop the gluten. You want it to stretch and not tear immediately if you test a small piece of the dough.
- Turn the speed back to low and add 115g slightly chilled unsalted butter, cut into tablespoon sized pieces, a couple of pieces at a time. Wait until each addition is incorporated before adding more. This can take up to 10 minutes.
Forming the dough ball:
- Tip the dough onto the bench. Pick a side to be the top of the dough ball and keep it that way.
- Lift the dough off the bench, stretch it out and drop it back down, gathering it back into a ball with a dough scraper.
- Repeat until the dough becomes less sticky and more resistant.
- Then lift the dough about 30cm off the bench, letting it stretch into a tail, flip the tail forward as you land it, roll the dough over and tuck it in, keeping the top facing up. Tuck in around the base with the scraper and repeat a couple of times.
- The dough is ready when it releases cleanly from the bench and springs back when pressed.
- Lift into a greased bowl, cover with an oiled sealed lid or oiled plastic wrap.
- Refrigerate overnight, up to 12 hours.
Cardamom sugar:
- Grind the 25g package of decorticated cardamom seeds, finely but not to a powder.
- Set aside 1 ½ tablespoons of the ground cardamom for the filling.
- Combine the remaining ground cardamom, up to 2 tablespoons, with 200g white sugar.
- Store in a wide, shallow, sealed container on the bench overnight.
Get organised:
- Set up your proving environment before taking the dough out of the fridge.
- Set the oven to 30°C.
- Grease two six-hole Texas muffin tins.
Assembling the cardamom orange knots:
- Remove the risen dough from the fridge. It does not need to come to room temperature; you want to work with chilled, not soft, dough.
- Roll the dough out on a well-floured silicone mat into a 45cm x 30cm rectangle, about 8mm thick.
- If the dough gets too soft to handle, return it to the fridge to firm up. No mat this size? Baking paper works too, though it's a bit trickier to manage.
- Slide the rolled dough onto a flat tray, return to the fridge, and let it firm up for 15-20 minutes.
- Spread the room temperature cardamom filling across the dough with a silicone spatula, stopping about 5mm short of the edges on all sides.
- Return the dough to the fridge to firm up again for 10-15 minutes.
- Fold the rectangle in half lengthwise, edges meeting, and gently shape back into a 45cm x 15cm rectangle using the rolling pin.
- Mark and cut 12 x 3.5cm strips along the long edge of the folded dough.
- Cut each strip lengthwise into three, leaving about 1cm uncut at one end to hold them together.
- Loosely braid the three strips and pinch the ends together.
- Flip the braided strip over and loosely roll it from the pinched end back to the other end, creating the effect of a knot.
- Place each knot seam-side down into a hole of the prepared muffin tins.
- Transfer to your proving set up and prove until just under doubled in size, 30-40 minutes.
- Meanwhile, prepare the egg wash by beating 2 egg yolks with 1-2 tablespoons cream or milk.
Bake:
- Preheat the oven to 165°C fan forced.
- If baking over two racks, have one tray at the top third of the oven and the second at the bottom third of the oven. Swap the trays when the top tray starts to turn golden. Also rotate the trays 180 degrees at the same time.
- Brush the risen knots with a thin layer of egg wash, avoiding the filling. Repeat with a second thin layer.
- Once in the oven, immediately turn the temperature down to 155°C fan forced.
- Bake for around 20 minutes, checking from the 15-minute mark. The internal temperature of the bun should reach 88°C to 91°C.
- Let the knots cool in the tins for a few minutes.
- Working quickly while the knots are still hot, gently remove the knots from the tins and tip them one at a time into the cardamom sugar. Use a combination of sprinkling and rolling to coat them.
- Leave to cool completely on a wire rack.
Just before you cook with abandon…
Cardamom: For the best flavour, grind your own decorticated cardamom seeds rather than using pre-ground cardamom from the supermarket spice aisle, which won't have the same burst of essential oils and citrus-floral taste. If you're using the supermarket variety, increase the amount in the filling to 2 tablespoons. A 25g package of decorticated seeds gives you enough ground cardamom for both the filling and the cardamom sugar.
Sugar: You can swap the dark brown sugar for light brown, though the dark brown sugar's molasses flavour is worth keeping if you can.
Get organised: Mise en place, or putting in place, is harder when a recipe runs across two days, so treat it as two lots of being organised. Weigh and set out each component as you make it, and on bake day get your proving environment set up and your muffin tins greased before the foundation sweet dough comes out of the fridge. The dough is easiest to handle while it's still cold, and that window closes while you're hunting for a rolling pin.
Digital scales: If you are going to bake, you need a kitchen scale. It's really in the necessity column not the optional column. You don't need to spend a fortune on them; decent ones can be bought for about $70. I find the expensive ones break down just as quickly as the cheaper versions. But I would recommend you go for a known brand from a reputable kitchen shop.
Tablespoons: I use 15ml tablespoons in my baking recipes.
Make ahead: The night before you bake, make the tangzhong, knead the foundation sweet dough and get it into the fridge for its overnight rest, and make the cardamom sugar so it has time to develop overnight. That leaves the cardamom filling, rolling, shaping and baking for the day itself.
Proving without a proving oven: I use one very large sturdy plastic bag (70cm x 80cm) that holds both six-hole Texas muffin tins together on a large tray, inflated with a hair dryer so it doesn't catch on the dough, then prove in the oven set to 30°C. If your muffin tins are the larger size and won't both fit in one bag, use two bags instead, one tin to a bag, over two racks. The tins will be fine on two racks in a warm oven without the bags too—add a bowl of just boiled water in the corner of the oven if you want the humidity. Large sealed plastic storage containers on the bench work as well. And if it's January in Australia, the bench is fine on its own.
Storage: The tangzhong method used in these cardamom orange knots helps keep them fresh—moist and fluffy—for a couple of extra days. I keep them in the fridge in a sealed container and refresh them with a few minutes in a low oven at around 120°C until they're warmed through.
Freezing: These cardamom orange knots can be frozen at more than one stage. Once shaped and placed in the tins, they can be frozen before proving rather than baked straight away—freeze until solid, then transfer to an airtight container. To use, thaw in the fridge overnight, then let the knots come up to room temperature and prove as normal before baking, building in extra time since this takes longer than an unfrozen prove. Or freeze them once baked and completely cooled, in a sealed container. To reheat, microwave one for 30 seconds on high, then pop it in a low oven at around 120°C until it's warmed through.