Lemon Cardamom and Cinnamon Rolls

Once a year we find lemons, the yellow ones. The rest of the year we buy limes, the green ones. Lime is used almost everyday in the Thai kitchen and to be found at all markets. I use them like I would use lemons, even the peel for zest.

The other day I saw these amazingly delicious looking fluffy sticky lemon rolls made by Karen of Bake my Day. Peter is not a fan of lemons, ok he almost hates them. But I love them and the combination of sweet and tart is great.

Off course I had to change something. It had nothing to do with the recipe because that’s great. But when I looked for the ingredients for the filling I saw those delicious smelling green cardamom seeds waiting to be used. And cardamom goes nice with cinnamon. I already made the dough with cinnamon and nutmeg. So cardamom in the filling should give it something extra.

Some time ago a friend gave us a secondhand blender. I had no idea what a great help it would be. Whenever a recipe called for lemon zest I tried to replace it, not because I don’t like the taste, but because it’s a lot of work to get the zest into itsy bitsy tiny pieces. Now I just put the lemon zest slices in my grinder. Wow, this is just what I needed.

That evening we had to try them. These rolls are delicious; soft, juicy, fresh, sweet and tangy. Even though I put lemon glaze on top of the rolls, Peter loved them!

Enough talking, let's bake!

This is what I used for the dough:

2.1/2 tsp instant yeast 
243 gr milk 
56 gr soft butter 
54 gr vegetable oil 
2 tsp vanilla 
437 gr bread flour 
124 gr all purpose flour
3 gr salt 
1/4 tsp nutmeg 
1/4 tsp cinnamon 
zest of 1 lemon (juice will be used for glaze!) 
2 medium eggs

This is what I used for the filling:
100 gr sugar (the original said 149 gr)
5 pots of green cardamom (the original said 1/8 tsp nutmeg and 1/2 tsp ginger powder) 
1/4 tsp cinnamon 
1 lemon; juice and zest (I used the juice of half a lemon)
45 gr soft butter

This is what I did:

For the filling: I mixed all ingredients and added the juice of half a lemon. Set aside until you need it.

For the dough: mix all ingredients until you get a rather stiff but supple dough, leave to rise until doubled (approx. 1 hour). Roll out into a rectangle of approx. 25 * 40 cm 10”x15”. 

Spread the rectangle with the filling. Leave the borders bare. Roll up from the longer side and close the dough. Karen used juice of a whole lemon and her filling oozed out and made a mess.

I made approx. 5 cm. rolls and placed 7 out of 9 in my round cake pan, which I lined with parchment paper. I placed the remaining two rolls on parchment paper.

Cover and leave to proof for approx. 45 minutes or until they fill the pan. 

Preheat oven to 180°C and bake for 30-35 minutes. Don’t over bake them!  

When cooled I added simple lemon glaze by using the reserved lemon juice and powdered sugar. We ate two and I had to place the others in the freezer before they all disappeared on the same day.

I found them at Karen’s Bake My Day 

I send this to Susan’s YeastSpotting and Heather of Bake Your Own Bread