christmas star bread

The prettiest and very delicious bread for your holiday celebrations!! During this autumn I shared an image on IG of my autumn star bread and had a lot of questions about how to make it and if it was difficult. It’s actually not that difficult, with a few simple steps, you’ll be able to impress your Christmas guests. And in case you’re more of a visual learner, head here to watch the tutorial on Instagram. My version for the festive season is soft and fluffy and has the smell and taste of Christmas; marzipan!!, orange!!, clove!! I’ve added white whole-wheat flour and substituted butter in the filling with EVO to increase nutritional value.

IngredieInfren

Dough:

For the dough you’'ll need:

60 g butter

200 ml milk

25 g yeast

1 egg

Finely grated zest of 2 organic oranges

1/2 tsp fine salt

1 tbsp sugar

140 g white whole-wheat flour

300 g all purpose flour

For the filling you’ll need:

150 g marzipan

40 g candied orange peel

2 tbsp ecological virgin olive oil

3 tbsp freshly squeezed orange juice

0,5 tsp ground clove

1 tsp ground cardamom

Directions

Start by melting the butter in a saucepan. Dissolve the yeast in the milk by stirring with a spoon, add the melted butter + egg and mix. Add the rest of the ingredients for the dough while holding back 25 g of the all purpose flour. Preferrably, you let your stand mixer do the mixing and kneading. If you don’t have a stand mixer, kneading by hand is an option. Only if the dough is sticky, add the rest of the flour. Keep it going until the dough releases from the sides of the bowl. If kneading by hand, keep kneading until the dough easily releases from the counter top. Cover the dough and leave to rise for an hour.

Meanwhile make the filling: Grate the marzipan roughly and transfer to a bowl. Squeeze one of the oranges and measure 3 tbsp to add to the marzipan. Add the remaining ingredients and mix until well combined.

You now have the option of making 1 large star or 3 smaller ones.

Transfer the dough to your counter top and with a table scraper, cut the dough into three equal sized pieces.

1 large star: Roll out each of the three pieces to a thin circle and transfer one circle to a piece of parchment paper.

3 smaller stars: Cut each of the three pieces of dough into another three equal sized pieces, giving you a total of 9 circles, 3 for each star. Transfer one circle to a piece of parchment paper.

Spread the filling on a circle, continue the layering process, leaving the top dough circle without filling.

Place a reversed plate (large approx. 23 cm, small approx. 16 cm)on the layered dough circles to make sure your circle is beautifully round. Cut off the excess dough. At the centre of the circle, place a round cutter or cup (large approx. 7 cm, small approx. 4 cm). From this, cut the dough into 4 equal sized parts. Cut each of the four parts into four strips, leaving 16 strips.

By using both hands, you lift up two strips and twist them away from each other one and a half round. Repeat with the remaining strips, giving the star 8 points. Pinch the dough ends and fold them under the star.

Brush the star(s) with milk, transfer the parchment paper to a baking sheet and bake at 200 degrees Celsius. Small stars for 13-14 minutes and large star for 15-17 minutes until golden.

Optional: Dust with powdered sugar.