Saturday is treat day for me and this week has felt a bit too long and tiring so last night I thought I would prepare something nice and tasty for breakfast.

This knots follow the basics of cinnamon rolls, but since I absolutely hate them, I thought I would make something different. They don’t take a lot of your time to prepare, but they do require two sets of raising, so if you want them for breakfast, doing them the night before is the right thing!

These are fairly easy to make, but I thought I would do a step by step with pictures of the making. The summarised version can be found below!

This is how I made it

Ingredients (makes about 6 big knots):

• 250 ml of whole milk
• 60 gr of butter
• 500 gr of bread flour
• 15 gr of instant yeast
• 100 gr of sugar
• A pinch of salt
• 1 egg
• 100 gr of dark chocolate chips
• 20 – 30 gr of pistachios, grinded

Process:

1. Warm up the milk and melt the butter in it. I turned off the heat when I put the butter in and once it started to melt I took it off the heat completely and helped it melt with a spoon. Set aside.
2. In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients, the flour, the yeast, the sugar and the salt.

3. Add the milk and the butter to the dry ingredients and mix well.

4. You can do this with a stand mixer, I like to do it by hand. If you are doing it in a stand mixer, keep mixing until you have a sticky and flexible dough (about 5-8 minutes). If you are doing it by hand, once all the ingredients are mixed and the dough is starting to come together, flour a surface and put the dough on it, keep kneading for about 5 minutes and then form it into a ball. Slightly oil a bowl and put the dough inside and cover it with a kitchen cloth, let it raise for an hour or more until it doubles the size. The raising speed will depend on how warm the room is, the warmer the quicker, my kitchen was a bit cold when I started, so mine took about 2 hours.

5. Once the dough is almost ready, melt the chocolate chips and grind the pistachios. Set the chocolate aside slightly to cool down.

6. After the dough has risen, put it in a slightly floured surface and with a rolling pin make the shape of a rectangle. We don’t want the dough to be too thin, maybe about 1 cm thick. Once the rectangle is formed, cut the edges with a knife so we have a proper rectangle. The longer side should be facing you.

7. Cover 2/3 of the rectangle with chocolate and pistachios all the way to the edges and then fold the non chocolate side to the middle of the rectangle and then the other side with chocolate over it, so we have another smaller rectangle. Once that is done, use a rolling pin so the folds stick together, not too much and we don’t want it to be too thin, we just want it to stick together. Cut the edges on the side to the rectangle.

8. Now divide the rectangle vertically into 6 smaller rectangles of about 3 fingers each and then cut these into 3 even smaller rectangles, leaving the top uncut.

9. Now braid the dough into a small braid

10. Fold the braid on itself into a ball, don’t stick it together or anything similar, we just want a little braid ball. Put each one in a greased muffin tray.

11. Put all the braids inside a plastic bag for proving and leave it for another hour so it raises a bit more.

12. After an hour, beat the egg and brush it over the knots and cook them in a preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, until they are nice and brown.

13. Let them cool for a few minutes and then pass them onto a cooling rack.

Enjoy!!

Dark chocolate and pistachio knots

Ingredients (makes about 6 big knots):

• 250 ml of whole milk
• 60 gr of butter
• 500 gr of bread flour
• 15 gr of instant yeast
• 100 gr of sugar
• A pinch of salt
• 1 egg
• 100 gr of dark chocolate chips
• 20 – 30 gr of pistachios, grinded

Process:

1. Warm up the milk and melt the butter in it. I turned off the heat when I put the butter in and once it started to melt I took it off the heat completely and helped it melt with a spoon. Set aside.
2. In a bowl, mix the dry ingredients, the flour, the yeast, the sugar and the salt.
3. Add the milk and the butter to the dry ingredients and mix well.
4. You can do this with a stand mixer, I like to do it by hand. If you are doing it in a stand mixer, keep mixing until you have a sticky and flexible dough (about 5-8 minutes). If you are doing it by hand, once all the ingredients are mixed and the dough is starting to come together, flour a surface and put the dough on it, keep kneading for about 5 minutes and then form it into a ball. Slightly oil a bowl and put the dough inside and cover it with a kitchen cloth, let it raise for an hour or more until it doubles the size. The raising speed will depend on how warm the room is, the warmer the quicker, my kitchen was a bit cold when I started, so mine took about 2 hours.
5. Once the dough is almost ready, melt the chocolate chips and grind the pistachios. Set the chocolate aside slightly to cool down.
6. After the dough has risen, put it in a slightly floured surface and with a rolling pin make the shape of a rectangle. We don’t want the dough to be too thin, maybe about 1 cm thick. Once the rectangle is formed, cut the edges with a knife so we have a proper rectangle. The longer side should be facing you.
7. Cover 2/3 of the rectangle with chocolate and pistachios all the way to the edges and then fold the non chocolate side to the middle of the rectangle and then the other side with chocolate over it, so we have another smaller rectangle. Once that is done, use a rolling pin so the folds stick together, not too much and we don’t want it to be too thin, we just want it to stick together. Cut the edges on the side to the rectangle.
8. Now divide the rectangle vertically into 6 smaller rectangles of about 3 fingers each and then cut these into 3 even smaller rectangles, leaving the top uncut.
9. Now braid the dough into a small braid
10. Fold the braid on itself into a ball, don’t stick it together or anything similar, we just want a little braid ball. Put each one in a greased muffin tray.
11. Put all the braids inside a plastic bag for proving and leave it for another hour so it raises a bit more.
12. After an hour, beat the egg and brush it over the knots and cook them in a preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, until they are nice and brown.
13. Let them cool for a few minutes and then pass them onto a cooling rack.