Lemon and cardamom swirl rolls idea

[Becky]

I have a lot of lemons to use up (was planning on making a lemon drizzle cake for Easter and didn't have time), so I've been thinking about what I can do with them. I've been wanting to make these Finnish bread rolls again sometime, and I was thinking that I could perhaps do a version with a lemon filling instead of vanilla.

I was wondering if anyone has had anything like this before? It will essentially be a brioche dough filled with a lemon curd type thing. I'm going to try and make it dairy free as well so that my husband can eat them, so I'm hoping I won't be trying to change too much all at once!

This is the nearest recipe I can find: https://cookingwithcurls.com/2014/02/17/lemon-curd-sweet-rolls-paint/

I'll add cardamom to the bread dough, and make a dairy-free lemon curd. What do you think?

 

[Norcalbaker59]

This sounds really delicious. You can actually roll just about anything into a sweet roll.

When you say dairy free do you mean a dairy free (no butter) brioche dough as well? If so, I’d be interested as a have a few vegan friends.

I think a vegan lemon curd could be made by replacing the butter with a stick vegan margarine. If you cook the curd to just 180°F (82°C), then whip the margarine in with a food processor after the curd is cooked it should hold up to the baking.

I just bought some vegan butter to try in puff pastry. One of my dear friends is lactose intolerant. So I want to bake desserts that she can eat with worry.

I think cardamom is a wonderful spice in a sweet application.

I’ve been thinking about an ginger, orange, macadamia nut, and honey sweet roll. My brother is involved in coffee import. The farmer collective also grows white ginger. So I told him
I’d develop a few recipes using the ginger.

 

[Becky]

When you say dairy free do you mean a dairy free (no butter) brioche dough as well? If so, I’d be interested as a have a few vegan friends.

Yep. Depending on the recipe I choose it may still have eggs in though, but I'll replace the butter / milk with dairy-free alternatives. I read this blog post recently and it makes me hopeful that the bread won't be too badly affected: https://blog.kingarthurflour.com/2018/02/23/dairy-free-bread/

I'm glad you like the sound of the idea! I've never tried making lemon curd before, but I'll take your advice re temperature and I also want to try and keep it more viscous. I'm excited to stay playing around with this!

Re lactose intolerance, here in the UK we can get dairy products that have the lactase enzyme as an added ingredient, so they can be digested by lactose intolerant people. It's great - means you don't need to sacrifice flavour. The brand here is called 'Lactofree' from a company called Arla, I'm wondering if there might be a US equivalent. We tried Lactofree products for a while with Ian, but it looks like he has an overall milk allergy unfortunately.

Ginger, orange, macadamia nut and honey sounds like a great combination! You'll have to let us know if you try it. Re ginger recipes, sounds like a good opportunity to see if you can find rhubarb - it goes really well with ginger

 

[Becky]

I've been looking at lemon curd recipes, and this has been a very interesting read:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/jan/18/how-to-make-the-perfect-lemon-curd

If you've not seen the 'How to cook the perfect...' series before, it is fantastic. Felicity Cloake reviews popular recipes for a certain thing (in this case lemon curd) and makes her own version. In the section titled 'The dairy', she mentions that some old recipes use just lemons, sugar, and egg yolks - no dairy at all. I'm intrigued by this and I think I'll give it a go!

In case you're wondering, the recipe Cloake is referencing is by Stella Parks: http://bravetart.com/recipes/LemonCurdGF

My thinking is that I can always add dairy-free spread at the end if I think it needs it. Need to pick up some eggs, but I'm hoping to make the curd tomorrow. I shall report back!

 

[Becky]

I have made the curd, and oh my goodness it's delicious! It's quite pale though, I don't know how Stella Parks gets hers so yellow. Maybe she didn't whisk as much air in as me? Ah well, looks aren't everything - and that is especially the case with mine... I accidentally let it catch on the bottom of the pan, then made the mistake of using a metal whisk which stirred up the burnt bits I thought it would come out when it was strained, but unfortunately not. However you can't taste it at all, it just means there are little dark flecks in the curd. Given it's going to be used in the bread rolls I wasn't too fussed, but if I make it again I'll be extra vigilant!!

 

[Becky]

This is the recipe I used in the end: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2014/may/22/how-to-bake-perfect-cinnamon-buns

Instead of the cinnamon butter filling I used the lemon curd I made. I also made them dairy free by substituting the milk for cashew milk and the butter for vegan spread. I accidentally used a lower fat-content spread than I meant to, so if I made them again I'd use a high fat-content margarine. Overall I was pleased with how the turned out!

They were a little too close together in the pan, and didn't tear very neatly as a result. Also the outside layer was quite dry, so I'd need to think of a way to avoid that in future. But overall they were tasty - the flavour combination of cardamom in the bread dough and lemon in the filling worked very well.