Blood Orange Zest Rolls

A couple of weeks ago I posted a recipe for Czech Easter sweet rolls, I liked the taste and texture so much that I decided to make them again. But this time I experimented a bit with different ingredients like adding the blood orange zest, vanilla and almonds. The results were yummy, yielding a slightly fruity and sweeter version. Honestly I liked these better than the recipe from the book.

The idea of the blood orange zest came when I looked in my spice cabinet to see what dried zest or citrus peels I had available. You see I like to remove and dry the peels from all sorts of citrus fruits to use in cooking and baking. You don't have to worry about using dried zest if you have some fresh blood oranges or oranges to use that will be just fine. Outside of Europe Vanilla sugar is not very popular so you may have a hard time finding it in other countries. I use it as a cheaper alternative to the hard to find vanilla extract. But don't worry see the recipe below to see how you can substitute the vanilla sugar with the extract.

Your Ingredients:
400 grams or 3 cups fine or medium grain flour
30 grams or 1 oz fresh yeast
40 grams or 1.41 oz Castor sugar
2 TB vanilla sugar ( or substitute 1 tsp. vanilla extract)
250 ml or a little over 1 cup milk, luke warm
pinch of salt
60 grams or 2 oz of butter
2 egg yolks (reserve the egg whites)
2 tsp dried blood orange zest ( can replace with orange zest )
slivered almonds for topping

extra flour for rolling
butter or oil to grease the baking pan

1. Melt the butter and set aside to allow to come to room temperature. In a small bowl break up the fresh yeast then add half the sugar and about 100 ml or 1/2 cup of milk. Allow the yeast to rise, about 5 minutes.
2. Mix the remaining white sugar and the vanilla sugar into the remaining milk and set aside. In a separate bowl combine the salt, zest and flour, make a well in the center. Once the yeast mixture is ready add it, the melted butter and remaining milk to the the flour. With a large wooden spoon start mixing the mixture until it comes together. You can begin kneading the mixture into a smooth dough for about 10 minutes (adding extra flour if needed). Cover and leave to rise until it has doubled in size, about an hour.


3. Preheat oven to 200c or 392f. On a floured surface knead the dough once again then cut into equal sized pieces/balls. Roll each into desired shapes, grease a baking pan, place the rolls on the baking sheet and brush egg whites over each bread. Leave bread to rise for another 5 minutes. Bake until they are golden brown 10-15 minutes.

Allow to cool down before serving.

I'm also excited to have found a great site called Wild Yeast! . This will be my first submission to their YeastSpotting , check it out lots of great recipes. And if you're like me and need an extra motivation to keep practicing and learning more about baking you'll love submitting to the site.