Cardamom Blood Orange Buns

Fluffy orange cardamom brioche dough, a simple orange cream cheese filling, topped with a blood orange glaze, these Cardamom Blood Orange Buns are fluffy and perfect for breakfast.

Prep Time45

Cook Time40

proofing1 30

Total Time2 55

Course: Afternoon Kaffee, Breakfast

Cuisine: American, German

Keyword: blood orange, brioche, cardamom, Cinnamon Roll

Servings:

Calories: 390kcal

Equipment

9" x 9" square metal pan

Ingredients

Orange Brioche

10 grams ground cardamom preferably the seeds freshly ground, pre ground cardamom if needed
1 blood orange zested
50 grams granulated sugar
350 grams all purpose flour
10 grams instant yeast
1 egg standard large, room temperature
180 grams whole milk lukewarm
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
40 grams butter room temperature

Cream Cheese Filling

8 ounces cream cheese room temperature
1 blood orange zested
20 grams blood orange juice juice
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
100 grams heavy cream for drizzling!

Orange Glaze

1 blood orange juiced more as needed
200 grams powdered sugar

Instructions

Orange Brioche Dough

Use a spice grinder or mortar and pestle to grind the cardamom seeds if needed.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, add in the sugar and the zest of an orange. Rub the zest into the sugar with your fingers until combined and fragrant.
Add in the flour, cardamom, and yeast, and whisk to combine.
Sprinkle in the salt. Then add in the egg, warm milk, and vanilla.
Use a dough hook to knead everything together on medium low speed for 15 minutes until the dough has smooth edges and the bowl is clean.
Add half of the butter in and knead again until incorporated (about 5 minutes). Add in the second half of the butter and knead once more until smooth. The dough should pass the window pane test *see notes section for more info.
If baking same day, keep the dough in the bowl and cover with a lid or plastic wrap and place somewhere warm to rise.
If prepping the dough the night before, line a quarter sized baking sheet with a sheet of plastic wrap. Shape the dough into a rough rectangle that is about an inch thick. Top the dough with another sheet of plastic wrap.
Place the dough on the sheet pan into the fridge overnight.

Orange Cream Cheese Filling

In a medium mixing bowl add in the cream cheese, salt, orange zest, and orange juice.
Beat or stir to combine. You don't need it to be light and fluffy just completely mixed.

Assemble

Preheat the oven to 350 F and place a rack in the center of the oven. Or just below if the heat comes from the top of the oven.
If not using a nonstick pan, line your pan with a sheet of parchment paper.
Once the dough has doubled in size, or the next morning, knock any air out of the dough. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to about 18" x 12".
Spread the cream cheese over the entire surface of the dough.
Starting with one short side, roll the dough up, keeping the ends as even as possible.
Give the roll a slight squeeze until it is about 14" long.
Trim about 1/2" off of each end then use a ruler to mark 8 marks, 1.5" apart. Cut the rolls one at a time.
Place the rolls into a 9" x 9" pan, they should be arranged in a 3x3 grid.
Place the pan somewhere warm until the rolls are puffy, this can take anywhere between 30 mins and an hour depending on the temperature of your home.
Once puffy, drizzle the top of the rolls with the heavy cream.
Bake for 25 minutes in the hot oven. Then rotate 180 degrees and bake for another 15 minutes.
Once golden brown, remove the pan from the oven and set on a rack to cool for 10 minutes while making the glaze.

Glaze

While the roll cools, whisk together the orange juice and powdered sugar to make a thick glaze.
Spoon the orange glaze over the top of the rolls and use the back of a spoon to spread it out.
Serve warm! Store leftovers in an airtight container at room temperature.

Notes

Make sure the egg and butter for the dough are both at room temperature and make sure the salt doesn't directly touch the yeast.

I recommend using just the seed part of a cardamom pod. However, when you buy pre-ground cardamom it includes the pod which makes a bit more of a grey color and a more subtle flavor. Both will work but if you can get your hands on just the seeds you’ll get the beautiful black specks and a stronger flavor! If you live in nyc Kalustyans has it!
To cut down on time in the morning, you can make the dough the night before. Once the dough is fully kneaded and wrapped up on the quarter sized baking sheet, it can be kept in the fridge for anywhere from 1 hour to overnight. In the morning take the dough out of the fridge and continue with assembling!
Adding the butter in after the dough comes together may seem counter intuitive and takes a moment to mix in but it allows the dough to create a bit of extra strength!
When making yeasted dough, ensure that you allow your mixer to fully knead the dough, until it forms a smooth ball and the sides of the bowl are cleaned. This will happen twice while kneading the dough, once before the butter is added and once after.
When rolling out the dough, try to make it as rectangular as possible. This will help when it comes shaping and cutting the twist. I use a bench scraper to keep reshaping into a rectangle as I roll it because it can be tricky to reshape at the end.
Place the rolls into the pan with the ends facing into the center of the pan so that they keep a more regular shape when baking.
Make sure to bake the buns until golden brown on top, all ovens and pans are different so always go based on look with these!

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