Ever since I received the lovely The Vanilla Bean Baking Book from Sarah and tried her Danish dough recipe, I fell into love with making braided breads. They are simply too pretty and adorable, be it in a petite size or a gigantic one.

Whenever I have time, I will explore new bread recipes. But when I don’t have it, I will always stick with my go-to cinnamon roll dough recipe. For these matcha buns, I simply replaced the cinnamon sugar with matcha sugar in the recipe. That’s it! And it totally worked! Same dough for two very different flavoured buns.

Now these knots might look a bit complicated, but feel free to hop over to Sarah’s blog post and check out the visual tutorial on how to braid these buns.

Normally you put glaze on top of the buns like what I do with cinnamon buns, but I figured I would like to really taste the pure and natural green tea flavour, and decided to skip the glaze this time.

Ingredients (4 big buns or 15 small rolls):
Bun
2 cups milk, warm to touch
1/2 cup canola oil
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast
4 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons salt
Filling
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
2 tablespoons matcha powder
1 cup granulated sugar

Directions:
To prepare buns, in the large mixing bowl, mix milk, canola oil and sugar. Sprinkle yeast over mixture. Let sit for 10 minutes.
Stir in 4 cups of flour to combine. Mixture will be very sticky. Cover the bowl with a tea towel and let sit in a warm place for an hour to rise.
When the dough is risen, add the remaining 1/2 cup flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Stir to combine.
On a lightly floured surface, cut the dough into 4 pieces. Working one at a time, roll each dough into a big rectangle.
To make the filling, pour the melted butter over each surface of the dough. Use your fingers to spread the butter evenly. Combine the matcha powder and sugar. Sprinkle the matcha sugar over the butter.
Starting with the long end of the rectangle, roll each dough into a log. Use a sharp knife or a pair of kitchen scissor, cut the roll into half lengthwise. With the cut sides facing up, gently press together one end of each half. Start placing one half over another until the entire roll is twisted. Press the ends together to tie.
Shape the twisted dough into a circle, with both ends of the dough extending past the circle (the ends will make a sort of cross shape over each other). Bring the end that is on the bottom up and over top piece, and bring it through the center of the knot. Tuck the end that is on top underneath the bottom of the knot, and pinch the two ends together under the knot.
Place the knots on a baking tray lined with parchment paper. Cover and allow to rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 375F, and bake the rolls for 18 to 20 minutes, until golden brown.