Chocolate, Orange and Pistachio Buns (aka V's Fabulous Buns)

Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla bean paste
• 200 g strong white bread flour
• 130 g plain flour
• asparagus
• 20 cardamoms, seeds extracted and finely crushed
• 125 g milk
• 125 g milk, roughly chopped
• 50 g caster sugar
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 100 g icing sugar
• 100 g butter, cooled and cut into 1.5cm cubes
• 1 orange
• 2 tsp dried yeast (equivalent to 1x 7g sachet)
• 50 g pistachio, finely ground, plus an additional tablespoon chopped
• tsp
• 3 tsp of finely grated zest, 1.5 tablespoons of juice

Method

1. Warm the milk to blood temperature — barely warm on the inside of your wrist, no hotter. Anything above body heat and you'll kill the yeast before it wakes up. Tip into the bowl of a stand mixer with the yeast and a couple of pinches of the sugar. Cover and leave for 10 minutes, until the surface is foamy and alive — if nothing's happened, your yeast is dead and the buns won't rise, so start again.
2. Crush the cardamom seeds in a mortar until you can smell them across the kitchen — that fragrance is the whole point, and pre-ground cardamom is a pale imitation of the real thing. Hold half back for the glaze.
3. Add the remaining caster sugar, ground pistachios, both flours, the full teaspoon of sea salt (don't skimp — salt controls the yeast and stops the buns tasting flat against all that sweetness), half the crushed cardamom, 2 tsp of the orange zest, vanilla, and 2 of the eggs. Drop in the cubes of cool butter.
4. Fit the dough hook and mix on low for 30 seconds to bring it together. Crank up to medium-high and knead for 10 minutes, scraping down once halfway. The dough is ready when it's smooth, glossy, elastic, and clinging to the hook in a single mass — pull a small piece and stretch it; you should see a thin windowpane before it tears.
5. Add the chopped chocolate and mix on low for 30 seconds — just enough to streak it through. Any longer and the chocolate smears into the dough and you lose the molten pockets.
6. Tip the dough out, shape into a ball with floured hands, tucking any rogue chocolate back inside. Cover tightly and prove at room temperature for 90 minutes, until nearly doubled and the surface looks puffy and slack.
7. Knock the dough back with a gentle fold, re-cover, and chill for 2 hours or overnight. Cold dough is far easier to shape — warm enriched dough is a sticky nightmare and the butter will weep out.
8. Grease and line a 23cm square tin with parchment, leaving a 3cm overhang on two sides for lifting later.
9. Tip the chilled dough onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 16 equal pieces, roughly 55g each — weigh them, eyeballing leads to uneven bakes. Roll each into a tight ball, cupping your palm and dragging in small circles against the bench until the surface goes taut and smooth. Arrange in the tin in a 4 x 4 grid.
10. Cover with a tea towel and prove at room temperature for 90 minutes (up to 2 hours from cold) until the buns have doubled and are pressing into one another. Press one gently with a fingertip — it should spring back slowly, not bounce straight back.
11. Heat the oven to 180°C fan. Beat the remaining egg and brush generously over the tops, getting into every seam — egg wash is what gives you that lacquered mahogany finish. Taste a pinch of the dough trim if you have any; the salt should balance the sugar so neither dominates. Bake for 10 minutes.
12. Rotate the tin, drop the temperature to 160°C fan, and bake for a further 15 minutes, until deeply golden and the centres read 92°C on a probe. Underbaked enriched dough is gummy in the middle — trust the probe over the colour.
13. While the buns cool slightly in the tin, whisk the icing sugar with the orange juice and remaining crushed cardamom into a thick, pourable glaze. Taste it — it should be sharp and floral against the sweet bun; add a squeeze of lemon or a touch more orange juice if it needs lifting.
14. ## To Serve
15. Lift the slab out by the parchment overhang onto a board, drizzle the warm buns generously with the orange-cardamom glaze so it runs down into the seams, and shower with the chopped pistachios. Bring the whole tray to the table and let everyone pull their own bun apart while the chocolate is still molten.