Orange-Date Buns

Well, since days I am planning to bake some carnival doughnuts, but somehow I always postpone it. Today I missed it again, because there is not enough oil for frying at home and in this cold weather I had no lust to go and get a bottle. As I mentioned it the last time, I am going to use something I have forgotten about on a weekly basis. Somewhen before Christmas, I bought a box of dates, but nobody wanted it during the holidays and I forgot about it.


So, I decided to bake some buns with dates and orange zest. Though this seemed to be too little, therefore I added some pistachios, almonds, berberis berries and the orange juice needed some cardamom and vanilla. These buns are great with a glass of cold milk and some home made rose water flavoured apricot jam.


Ingredients:
500 g flour
11/2 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon vanilla sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 pinch of saffron
20 g yeast
60 g butter
150 ml water
150 ml orange juice
50 g coarsly chopped almond
50 g pistachios
25 g sliced dates
25 g berberis berries
zest of 1 orange
1 egg for brushing

Sift together flour with salt, vanilla sugar, kardamom and make a hole in the middle and add yeast and butter. Dissolve saffron in lukewarm water and add it to the flour mixture together with the orange juice and knead a soft dough. Let it stand on room temperature for 1 hours or until it has doubled its size. Now knead in the nuts, fruits and the orange zest and cut the dough in 10 equal pieces and form buns. Brush with egg and bake for 20 minutes on 200°C.