These pumpkin shaped buns are super cute! Baked with a pinch of cardamom and topped with a dollop of green icing. Bake (and eat!) them with the kids. Enjoy!

Directions

1. Cut the butter into small chunks and melt in a pot or the microwave. Mix cold and boiling water in a bowl (either regular bowl or that of a mixer) and add melted butter, yoghurt and syrup. Crumble the yeast in and stir well until dissolved. Then add salt.

2. Now add orange food colouring. If you want a punchier orange colour, add a few more drops than the recipe calls for. Keep in mind that we'll be adding flour as well, so it's better to go a bit heavy on the orange.

3. Now mix vanilla sugar, ground cardamom and plain flour with the wet mix, either using your mixer or your supermuscles!

4. At this point, the dough should be soft and a little greasy – but not sticking to your fingers. If it does, add more flour little by little – be careful not to add too much though, or your buns will get dry.

5. Split the dough into 18 pieces. Shape 16 of the pieces into round buns. Use the final two pieces to make 16 small, oblong balls, to go on top as the stems.

6. Cut 48(!) pieces of meat string, each 20-25 cm long. Place into a glass with a dash of oil.

7. Tie three pieces of meat string vertically around each bun, to create 'pumpkin cracks'. You can also opt to bake the buns in batches and reuse the string.

8. Place the buns on a sheet pan lined with baking parchment. Cover with a clean dishcloth and let rise for 30-45 minutes.

9. Preheat your oven to 185 degrees fan assisted and bake the buns for 15-20 minutes, until they sound hollow when knocked on the bottom – that means they're done!

10. Let the buns cool and cut away the strings. Mix some icing from powdered sugar, food colouring and a few drops of boiling water. Coat the small 'stem' balls in green icing and attach to the tops of the buns.

11. The buns can be munched with butter, cheese or other topping. Oh right, and supposedly there's something called 'Nutella'..! Enjoy!

Tip

Tasks for younger kids in the kitchen: Let your kids help add ingredients to the mixing bowl. They'll definitely like adding the food colouring and shaping the buns as well.