I love cardamom knot buns. The cardamom knots of Espresso House, Gateau.. you name it! A good dough and LOTS of cardamom, makes a perfect bun.

Vegan & no margarine

But what if I wanted to make the bun vegan, i.e. without eggs and butter? The eggless dough still works just fine, but what about butter?! I can't stand the taste of margarine, and the mere thought of using it in baking feels somehow gross. I decided to try and make buns with cooking oil instead of the butter, which at first seemed like an almost impossible task, but hey - you can always try!

Interestingly enough, the vegan bun, without margarine, works perfectly and it stays really juicy. I used Happy Olive's early Harvest olive oil for baking, which still has a rather strong taste of fresh olive oil, but it didn’t taste through in the finished product! If the taste of olive oil turns you off, you can easily replace it with a milder tasting cooking oil. For me, I love the high quality olive oil and use it for everything these days and I absolutely loved in these buns too :)

Why so much cardamom?!

There’s just something about the taste of cardamom that makes a bun taste like a proper bun. :) My usual recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of cardamom, but this recipe adds a whole 1/4 cup or 1/2 dl of cardamom to the filling. It may sound crazy but you have to try it! I fell in love with this type of buns in cafés around the city, because of the sweet and perhaps even a bit herbal taste of the cardamom in it. It’s so simple to make and adds a touch of something special to the regular ol’ buns.

Vegan Cardamom Knot Buns, without margarine

Yield: approx. 27 buns. (3 sheets)

Ingredients

vegan bun Dough

• 5 dl (2 cups) oat milk

• 2 tsp dry yeast

• 1.5 dl (2/3 cup) of sugar

• 1,5 tsp salt

• 2 Tbsp cardamom

• about 10 dl (4 cups) wheat flour

• 1,5 dl (2/3 cup) extra virgin olive oil

Filling

• about 0.5 dl (1/4 cup) extra virgin Olive oil

• 3 dl (1 1/4 cups) sugar

• 0.5 dl (1/4 cup) cardamom

Final touches

• Olive oil or aquafaba, i.e. canned chickpea broth

• The rest of the sugar-cardamom mixture

Preparation

1. Prepare the bun dough. Measure the oat milk into a pot and heat it to hand temperature (42°C / 105°F).

2. Pour the warm oat milk into a bowl, add yeast, sugar, salt and cardamom. Stir.

3. Add most of the flour (approx. 3/4 of the amount) and mix until you get a firm dough.

4. Add olive oil and knead until the dough becomes elastic and doesn’t stick to the sides of the bowl. Add more flour at this stage if needed, if the dough feels too soft or sticky.

5. Cover the bowl with a cloth or plastic wrap and let the dough rest for approx. 15 minutes before baking.

6. Make the knot buns. Divide the dough into two parts. Roll into a large rectangle and spread a generous amount of olive oil on the other half. Sprinkle about half of the sugar-cardamom mixture on top of it. Turn the other side of the dough over the side with the cardamom-sugar layer. Cut the sheet of dough into strips approx. 1.5-2 cm (1,5 fingers wide, or a generous 1/2 inch) wide and twist them from the ends in different directions so that the dough becomes a spiral bar. Roll it into a round knot on a baking sheet and turn the ends of the bun under the it.

7. Let the buns rise under the cloth.

8. Grease the buns with some olive oil or aquafaba and sprinkle the rest of the sugar-cardamom mixture over the buns.

9. Bake at 200°C (395°F) until the surface is golden brown.