Cardamom and Tea

hot cross buns with banana and orange blossom

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Rolls on Easter are such a universal. While I didn’t grow up with hot cross buns, we usually had samoon on the table, and my grandmother always told us about the gubta mtumarta-stuffed samoon her mother would make every Easter. One roll was always filled with a little cheese, and the lucky kid who found the cheesy one got a special gift (like a new dress or new shoes). I should really develop a savory cheese-stuffed hot cross bun recipe next year. But this year I’m sharing this classically sweet (but not too sweet) recipe: orange blossom banana hot cross buns!

a few notes for this hot cross bun recipe

flavors

The combination of orange blossom and banana is one of my favorites. If you’ve never tried it before, you’ll definitely notice that orange blossom lives up to its name. It’s floral and distinctively orangey. But at the same time, it’s not at all citrusy, and lacks the big brassy notes of orange juice and zest.

So even though the fruit and the flower come from the same tree, the closest flavor to orange blossom is actually, surprisingly, banana. The two flavors complement each other perfectly—orange blossom brings out the fragrant floral notes in ripe banana. And banana brings the orange blossom down to earth a little, giving it substance.

You can easily omit the orange blossom water. For the glaze, substitute orange or lemon juice in its place. For the bread dough, replace it with more orange juice.

The one thing I’ve got to emphasize about this recipe is that the bananas absolutely must be old bananas. For this bread to have the right flavor, they really must be overripe, totally past their prime. Don’t settle for bananas with brown spots. Really wait for them to start to develop brown splotches, and almost entirely change color. That’s when they’re ready to use. If you want to speed things along, you can place the bananas in a brown paper bag to make them ripen a day or two sooner.

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hot cross buns with banana and orange blossom

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  • Prep Time: 35 minutes
  • Total Time: 3 hours
  • Yield: 9 rolls

Ingredients

for the dough:

  • 70g raisins (1/2 cup)
  • 70g chopped pitted dates (1/2 cup)
  • 60g orange juice or water (1/4 cup)
  • 45g orange blossom water (3 tablespoons)*, divided into 1T and 2T
  • 2 large egg yolks (35-40g) (save the whites)
  • 230g mashed overripe bananas (from 2 to 3 bananas)
  • 85g softened butter (6 tablespoons)
  • 7g instant yeast (2 teaspoons)**
  • 50g light brown sugar (1/4 cup)
  • 2.5g cinnamon (1 teaspoon)
  • 0.5g cardamom (1/4 teaspoon)
  • 8g baking powder (2 teaspoons)
  • 12g salt (2 teaspoons)
  • 490g all purpose flour (3 3/4 cups)
  • egg whites beaten with a little water (for the egg wash)

for the glaze:

  • 45g icing sugar (1/3 cup)
  • 15g orange blossom water (1 tablespoon)
  • 1 tiny pinch salt

for the icing:

  • 85g icing sugar (2/3 cup)
  • 12.5g orange blossom water (2 1/2 teaspoons)

Instructions

  1. Make the dough: Combine the raisins, dates, orange juice, and 1 tablespoon of the orange blossom water. Microwave for 1 minute, then let them soak and cool while you work on the dough (at least 10 minutes).
  2. In the bowl of a food processor, combine the egg yolks, mashed bananas, butter, yeast, brown sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, baking powder, salt, flour***, and the other 2 tablespoons of orange blossom water. Stir together with the hook attachment at low speed until there’s only a little dry flour remaining at the bottom of the bowl. Increase the speed to medium and knead for about 5 to 10 minutes, until it becomes elastic and smooths out quite a bit. The dough should be a little on the wet side—it should pool a tiny bit in the bottom of the bowl, but should also pull away from the sides of the bowl.
  3. Once the dough is done kneading, strain the dried fruit and wring it out a little with your hands (discarding the liquid). Add the strained dried fruit to the dough and mix everything together until evenly distributed (you may need to switch to using your hands, folding the dough over itself a few times).
  4. Preheat the oven to 180°F (80°C), then turn the heat off and leave the door open for 30 seconds.
  5. Transfer the dough to an oiled bowl, smooth out into a ball by tucking the bottom under itself, cover with a plate, and move to the warm (but off!) oven for 50-60 minutes. While it’s proofing, butter a 8×8” pan (and optionally line the bottom with parchment).
  6. Once the dough is done rising, move to a lightly floured counter, and divide into 9 even pieces (about 120g each). Shape each piece into a smooth, round ball. Space them evenly in the pan.
  7. Cover the pan with plastic wrap, and move back to the still warm oven for about 40 minutes (again, make sure it’s still off), just until the gaps around them almost close up.
  8. Once the buns have finished their rise, remove from the oven, and preheat it to 350°F (177°C) convection.****
  9. While you wait on the oven, make the glaze and icing: Stir the glaze ingredients together until it becomes a runny and translucent glaze. Cover it and set aside. In a separate bowl, stir together the icing ingredients until they form a thick icing. Transfer to a pastry or ziplock bag to pipe it later.
  10. Once the oven has preheated, brush the buns with a light layer of egg wash, and then bake for about 30 to 35 minutes, until the internal temperature reads about 195°F (about 90°C).
  11. When they’re done baking, remove from the pan to a cooling rack, and immediately brush the top and sides with the runny glaze.
  12. Wait for the glaze to set completely before piping the icing. Pipe the icing across the buns in 1 direction, and again in the other direction (see photos). Let the icing harden for a few minutes before covering.

Notes

* Most easy-to-find orange blossom water brands aren’t super strong, especially if they’ve been sitting on the shelf for a while. But proceed with a little bit of caution, taste some on a piece of fruit to see how strong it is, and make sure you don’t overdo it—you might only need 1 tablespoon for the dough. Likewise for the glaze, which may only need 1/2 tablespoon + some water to dilute it. Its flavor will come through more distinctly in the glaze than in the dough.

** If you’re using active dry instead of instant yeast, mix it in with the mashed banana first so it can dissolve.

*** Using weight instead of volume gives you more consistent results when following a baking recipe. But if you don’t have a scale and need to measure with volume, no worries—just make sure you don’t add all the flour at once. Add the first 75% of it, and then slowly add the last 25%. You may not need it all, or you may need a little bit more. With this recipe, most of the moisture and flavor comes from the bananas—if you add too much flour, you can add a little bit of milk to compensate, but it will be hard to recover the flavor and it might end up tasting bland.

**** If you don’t have convection, they should take a little longer to bake, or you can slightly increase the temperature.

Storage: Like most bread, it can be kept at room temperature for less than 1 day before starting to get stale, and it will stale fastest in the refrigerator. Bread keeps much better tightly wrapped in the freezer for long term storage. If you want to make it ahead for company: Bake it (be extra careful not to over bake!), let it cool completely, wrap and freeze it as soon as it’s cool. The day you plan to serve it, thaw it in a 325°F (165°C) convection oven for about 10 minutes (until it’s thawed on the outside, and only frozen at its core) then let it coast the rest of the way and cool at room temperature, and then glaze and ice it before serving.

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muhammara-inspired lamb shanks

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Muhammara is made of tangy pomegranate molasses, rich and toasty walnuts, and smoky red peppers. This magical combination works well with lamb, and it’s particularly good in a braise. While braising results in a perfectly tender texture and deep flavors, it tends to deaden everything a little in the process. But pomegranate molasses and a little red wine vinegar brighten the braising liquid and turn it into a sweet and sour barbecue sauce. Red peppers hold together beautifully, even after quite a long cook-time, and adding some of them toward the end gives the dish a nice variety of textures and flavors. And walnuts add such a nice toothsome bite to the melt-in-your-mouth-tender lamb shanks.

I’ve made these muhammara-inspired lamb shanks while visiting family a few times, and they’re always a hit. It’s one of those dishes that comes together quickly, and then spends a few hours in the oven getting all perfect and falling off the bone. And you don’t need to do a single thing to make it look pretty—in fact, the less you mess with it after it comes out of the oven, the prettier it will look at the table (fat skimming to the wind!). But that doesn’t mean you can’t make it ahead of time, and I’ve actually included some long-term storage instructions for anyone who wants to get a head start on holiday cooking.

kicking off three weeks of Easter posts

This year, there’s a lot to celebrate, because Easter, the start of Ramadan, and Passover all fall within a few weeks of each other! The Assyrian Church of the East (my family’s branch of Orthodox Christianity) celebrates Easter on the Gregorian calendar, but this year both Eastern and Western observances will even be a week apart. Looking forward to lots of delicious Instagram posts from friends and family around the world!

The next couple posts I have coming up are very Easter-themed, but these lamb shanks would work perfectly for Passover or Eid too (the only tricky ingredient for Passover is pomegranate molasses, which you can easily make from scratch with whole ingredients. And obviously the bread serving suggestion goes out the window, but it totally doesn’t need it).

So this week I’ve got these lamb shanks, next week there’ll be some orange blossom banana hot cross buns, and the week after I’ll be sharing my favorite way to make tacos árabes. I carefully staggered these posts, so that you can actually start making the early ones ahead of time, leaving plenty of time for relaxing with the family. But if you’d rather cook everything the weekend of, the lamb shanks and/or tacos árabes can totally be made the day before.

I’ve included instructions in the recipe below so that you can even make these lamb shanks today, freeze them, and then throw them in the fridge a day or two before so they’re ready just in time. The hot cross buns are best made with very overripe bananas, so when the recipe goes live you can buy some bananas to let them go bad the week before Easter (I mean, not all of us have Chrissy Teigen’s twitter following and John Legend’s underwear for such things). But if you wait until the last minute and need something impressive to make the weekend of Easter, my tacos árabes can also be made the day before, with no marinating required.

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muhammara-inspired lamb shanks

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  • Prep Time: 30 minutes
  • Total Time: about 3 hours
  • Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients

  • 3 red bell peppers
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil, divided in half
  • 3/4 cup diced onion
  • 3 cloves garlic, crushed through a press
  • 1/2 teaspoon cumin
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried oregano
  • 1/4 cup tomato paste
  • 1 1/4 cup stock (either beef, vegetable, or chicken)
  • 1/3 cup pomegranate molasses
  • 1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
  • 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
  • Salt to taste (I use 3/4 teaspoon total, but it depends on the saltiness of your stock)
  • 4 to 4 1/2 pounds lamb shanks (about 3 large, or 6 small)
  • 1/2 cup chopped walnuts
  • for serving: crusty bread

Instructions

  1. Turn one or two gas stove burners to medium heat and place the red peppers directly over the grates.* Cook the peppers, occasionally rotating them. Cook until the peppers are somewhat soft and extremely charred (about 10 minutes total). Remove to a plate and cover with plastic wrap.
  2. Once the peppers have cooled down, use a paper towel to rub away the charred skins. If you’re having trouble removing enough of the char, run them under a little water. Cut the peppers open and discard the seeds, pith, stems, and any excess liquid. Slice the red peppers into half-inch-wide strips. Set aside.
  3. Preheat the oven to 350° F (180° C).
  4. Preheat a large dutch oven over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon olive oil and the onions, and cook for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until they soften a bit.
  5. Add the garlic, cumin, oregano, and tomato paste to the onions and cook for no longer than 1 minute, stirring constantly.
  6. Turn off the heat, and stir in the stock, pomegranate molasses, crushed red pepper, red wine vinegar, and season to taste. Add the lamb shanks to the braising liquid and try to get everything to fit as snugly as possible. Sprinkle about 1/3 of the red pepper strips between the lamb shanks (make sure they land in the liquid). Season the tops of the lamb shanks with a little more salt. It’s perfectly fine if the lamb is exposed about halfway (the lamb will not be fully submerged).
  7. Cover with a tight lid and move to the oven for about 2 1/2 to 3 hours, until the meat is very tender and pulls apart easily with a fork. It will get tough before getting tender.
  8. About 45 minutes before the lamb is done cooking, sprinkle the remaining red peppers over the surface (some should fall into the liquid, and some should sit on top of the lamb). Cover and continue cooking.
  9. While you’re waiting on the lamb and red peppers, toast the walnuts. Heat a small skillet with 1 tablespoon butter (or 2 teaspoons olive oil) over medium heat until the butter melts. Add the walnuts and cook, stirring constantly for about 5 minutes, until they are fragrant and lightly toasted.
  10. Once the dish is done, skim the fat from the sauce with a fat separator or a spoon.** Alternatively, you could refrigerate the whole thing overnight and then just scrape up the solidified fat. Or you could just leave the fat, because it’s delicious.
  11. Top the lamb with the walnuts, and serve with bread.

Notes

* If you don’t have a gas stove, you can use your oven’s broiler or a grill, using the same method and checking frequently. They’ll get softer than with fire-roasting, but that’s ok.

** To use the spoon method, move the sauce to a bowl so that it’s easier to work with. Place the spoon so that it is almost parallel to the sauce’s surface, like a little boat. Keeping it parallel to the surface, slowly let the spoon sink slightly into the liquid, allowing the fat to rush into the spoon’s bowl. Be careful not to dip to low or on too much of an angle, or else you’ll remove a lot of the sauce with the fat. Remove and repeat until you’ve skimmed most of the fat (it takes about 5 minutes).

To store for a couple days: Move the cooled red pepper lamb shanks and sauce to the refrigerator overnight (store the sauce separately to make it easier to skim the next day). When you’re ready to serve, microwave the sauce and red pepper lamb shanks together until they’re heated through (or bake covered at 300°F / 150°C in the pot you braised them in with a couple extra tablespoons of water mixed in, until they’re heated through). Keep an eye on it to make sure it’s not too dry, and add a little more water as necessary (but careful not to water it down too much). Garnish with the walnuts before serving.

To store for up to 3 months: Move the cooled red pepper lamb shanks to 1 or 2 gallon-sized freezer bags, along with any red peppers or other bits and pieces, leaving most of the sauce behind in the pan. Transfer the sauce to a separate freezer-safe container. 1 or 2 days before serving, move the lamb and sauce to the refrigerator to thaw. When you’re ready to serve, reheat as above. If you forget to thaw them, use your microwave’s defrost setting to gently bring them to room temperature before reheating fully.

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