Orange Bowknots with a cup of tea

Orange Bowknots Recipe – Looks Fancy, Tastes Great

Orange Bowknots

Orange-flavoured, soft pillowy dough knots of goodness

I was at an Indigo store looking around and found a food magazine that piqued my interest. I don’t tend to buy magazines since in some cases they cost more than an actual whole recipe book but this one was interesting.

Better Homes and Gardens Bread Recipe magazine

Maybe I was hungry but all the pictures looked tempting. Plus, most of the recipes were ones I didn’t have a variation of in a different recipe book. So, I purchased this magazine and set out to mark all the recipes I wanted to try.

How I made Orange Bowknots

Bowl containing flour and active yeast

You start by mixing some of the flour with the yeast in a separate bowl.

The magazine directions tell you to remove 2 Tbsp of the zest and 1/4 cup of juice from the 2 oranges. The amount of zest and juice you need for the icing is not mentioned until you get to the icing step which is the last step. Thankfully I read all the instructions several times before I started so I knew to keep the extra zest and juice for use in the icing.

In a sauce pot, warm the milk, butter, sugar and salt just until the butter starts to melt and the milk is warm. Transfer to your stand mixer. I used my Kitchen Aid Stand Mixer for this recipe.

Add the flour and yeast mixture

Add the flour and yeast mixture to the milk mixture. Add the eggs as well.

Beat on high for 3 minutes

You need to beat this mixture on high for 3 minutes. Having this beater attachment with the scrapers on it makes a big difference. I don’t need to stop and scrap the sides down.

add juice and zest and remaining flour

Add the orange juice and zest and the rest of the flour. Only mix until just combined.

Dough before being kneaded

The recipe instructions tell you to take the dough out and knead on a lightly floured surface until you get a smooth and elastic dough that is slightly tacky. I did as the instructions said but next time I will just let the mixer do the kneading for me.

orange bowknot dough after kneading

This is what the dough looks like after you have kneaded it to the correct constancy. It was a very nice dough to knead. This may sound odd, but if you have hand-kneaded a variety of doughs you will understand when I say that this dough was soft and smooth.

Dough placed in a lightly greased bowl and covered

Lightly grease a bowl and turn your dough to coat it. I used grape seed oil since that has very little taste. Cover and let it rest until double in size, approximately 1 hour.

orange bowknot dough after 1 hour rising

This is what the dough looks like after an hour of resting. Doesn’t it look good?

The Final Processing

Lightly flour a surface and flatten the dough slightly to knock out the air. Divide the dough into two equal portions and cover. Let rest for 10 minutes.

Taking one portion of dough, roll a 12 x 7 inch rectangle and cut 1 inch strips of dough width wise.

Tie each strip into a single knot

Now comes the fun part. Tie each strip into a single knot. I found I had to stretch the dough slightly to get a knot but then on some of them the knot wasn’t in the middle so it wasn’t even.

Cover the dough and let rise again. The recipe called for 30 minutes in a warm spot. I was closer to 45 minutes since finding a warm spot in the house was a little more challenging.

Orange bowknots fresh from the oven

Here they are fresh from the oven! The smell was so good in the house. They need to cool for a little bit so you can make the icing now.

Add your orange zest to the icing sugar and add enough orange juice to reach a drizzling consistency.

Are you interested in another Orange Flavoured bread? I highly recommend this recipe for Orange French Toast for your breakfast or brunch.

The Results of Orange Bowknots

Trays of orange bowknots

These were delicious! Soft, sweet dough with a nice orange flavour. The icing wasn’t overpowering and added to the flavour.

The process to make these was not complicated and the list of ingredients was easy to find. I do need to practice the knot making though. Some of these looked…odd 😆.

The only downside to this and it might not be a downside depending on your situation was that these were the best the day they were made. I put them in an air-tight container and in the morning all the icing had slid off and puddled under each bun. They were okay the second day, but way better the first day.

What is your favorite orange-based dessert? Would you or have you made these before? Let me know in the comments. I would love to hear your thoughts.


Don’t have this magazine? You can find this recipe on the Better Homes and Garden website – Orange Bowknots. It’s almost the same as the magazine. There is a difference in the amount of zest and juice for the orange icing. The other difference is in the presentation of the actual steps. The website breaks the first step down into two smaller steps and the magazine makes it one long step. Also, because of the layout of the magazine, it is more challenging to read the recipe. I prefer the clean, easy-to-distinguish steps on the website.


Orange Bowknots with a cup of tea

If you like sweet, orange-flavoured bread, be sure to try this recipe for Orange Cardamom Breakfast Twist.

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