Star Bread

With step-by-step pictures and plenty of helpful tips, learn how to make Homemade Star Bread recipe using a few baking ingredients like flour, water, honey, yeast, salt, and milk and jam. This simple star bread has a super soft interior with a berry filled center. This recipe yields 2 large stars and comes together in just a few hours, so it’s perfect for sharing with a friend!

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Let’s make homemade star bread with crowd-pleasing pull apart pieces! I love to make this bread on Christmas Eve, so that it's ready to serve on Christmas morning!

We always travel for Christmas Eve and Christmas, and this bread is my favorite contribution to the holiday table.  There’s nothing quite as satisfying as warm homemade bread and this recipe is absolute jelly filled perfection. Enjoy it for special occasions all year long, but this lovely snowflake bread is perfect for Christmas brunch!

The secret to this pull-apart bread dough is that it is dual purpose-- the sweet dough is the exact same recipe as my viral homemade bread!  If you ask my kids, they'll enthusiastically tell you this is the best homemade bread for making sandwiches. And if you're new to baking daily bread, rest assured this is the perfect recipe to begin with. Once you get the hang of it, use this same dough for Pizza Pockets, Bierocks and Cinnamon Rolls! It's soon to be your favorite recipe!

Jump to:

• Equipment
• Dough Ingredients  
• Optional Toppings
• How to Make the Dough
• Shape the Dough
• Bake the Star
• CREAM CHEESE FROSTING
• Recipe
• Substitutions
• Variations
• How to Make Star Bread With Fresh Milled Flour
• Storage
• More Recipes You'll Love
• What's New on the Homestead
• Comments

Equipment

• large bowl or stand mixer
• A silicon pie mat is helpful for measuring the dough circle, but not necessary.
• Pizza pan or baking sheet-- I also highly recommend using parchment paper.
• Measuring cups and spoons

Dough Ingredients  

• Whole milk - Milk adds both liquids and fat to tenderizes the gluten. It gives the bread a soft and rich crumb.
• Water- Do not use water that is chlorinated or contains fluoride. Both of these chemicals inhibit bacterial growth, which is literally the opposite of what we want yeast (naturally occurring in sourdough starter or in a packet) to do.
• Softened butter - Good quality butter adds fat, which adds flavor, softness, keeps your star bread fresh longer.
• Bread flour - This recipe can also be made with all-purpose flour or freshly milled flour. See note below.
• Honey or sugar - This sweet dough is absolutely DELICIOUS with a hint of honey flavor.
• Salt - When I am baking sourdough I tend to stay away from iodized salts and instead try to use Himalayan, Celtic or sea salt.
• Active dry yeast - I highly recommend buying yeast in bulk! I get this yeast on amazon and store it in a mason jar in my refrigerator.
• Jam, jelly or pie filling - I'm using strawberry today, but cranberry, blueberry, lemon curd, blackberry and sand hill plum jelly are also delicious! My kids love it when I make these Christmas stars with cherry pie filling. See variations below for other ideas!

How to Make the Dough

1. Using a large glass measuring bowl, add the milk, water, and cubed butter. Heat it in the microwave or a saucepan until warm, but not boiling. The butter will melt, but there should be some solid pieces floating. The warm milk mixture needs to be warm enough to activate the yeast, but not so hot that it kills it. Aim for 110°F.
2. In a stand mixer, combine all of the dry ingredients EXCEPT one cup of flour. This will be added as needed. Mix the dry ingredients together and then pour in the warm liquid mixture. Attach the bowl and dough hook to the stand mixer and begin kneading on a low speed (slow and gentle). Form into ball shape with your hands
3. Continuing on a slow speed, add the remaining one cup of flour, a few tablespoons at a time until the dough clings to the hook and the sides of the bowl are clean. I usually have to add the entire cup of flour, for reference. Knead for two minutes more.
4. While the dough is kneading, bring a cup of water to a boil in the microwave and leave the door shut. This will create a warm and humid proofing box to help the dough be even fluffier.
5. Transfer the dough too a lightly greased large mixing bowl (or grease the mixing bowl it was made in) and cover the dough with a loose tea towel.
6. Quickly put the dough into the microwave and close the door. Let the dough rise for 45 minutes to an hour.

Shape the Dough

1. Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface or silicon pie mat. The pie mat makes it so much easier! It already has the circle size marked, so it's easy to shape the star bread. Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces.  Set aside three of the dough balls and create the first layer by pressing the dough into a 12 inch circle. You can do this with your hands and don't need a rolling pin.  Transfer this layer to a sheet of parchment paper on a pizza pan or baking sheet.
2. Spread warmed jam or jelly over the dough circle, leaving about an inch along the edges free of the sweet filling.  
3. Take another ball of dough and create the second circle.  Gently pick up the circle and place it over the bottom layer and jam.  Press the edges lightly to seal.
4. Place a round prep bowl, biscuit cutter or other small circle in the center of the dough circle.  Using a pizza cutter or sharp knife, divide the dough into four sections, then divide each section into 4 equal strips for a total of 16 segments.
5. Create a star shape by taking two adjacent strips of dough and twisting them twice away from each other while keeping the layers of dough together. Pinch the ends together to form the star points. See diagram above.
6. Cover with a tea towel, place dough in a warm spot and perform a second rise for 20-30 minutes until the top of the stars have domed nicely. 

Bake the Star

1. Preheat the oven to 350°. Use a pastry brush to lightly brush a thin coat of milk over each star bread. Sprinkle with sugar. Bake the bread for 50 to 60 minutes, until the crust is golden brown and the sides of the loaf feel firm. The internal temperature of the loaf should be about 195°F.
2. Remove the loaf from the oven and let it sit on the pan for 5-10 minutes. Leave the star on the parchment, and slide it on a cooling rack to cool. Let it cool completely before slicing. You can choose to leave the parchment underneath for stability or remove it, just make sure not to serve any pieces of parchment to your guests! 

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

• ½ Cup Butter room temperature
• 8 Ounces Cream Cheese room temperature
• 3 Cups Powdered Sugar
• 1 Teaspoon Vanilla

In a stand mixer with whisk attachment, add the cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar and vanilla. Whisk for several minutes until light and fluffy. Frost the stars while they are still warm from baking.

Recipe

Substitutions

• Dairy free - I have not personally recipe tested this bread with dairy free milk and butter alternatives, but several bakers in my instagram audience have reported that they made it dairy free without any issues!
• Gluten free - Unfortunately, this can not be made gluten free.
• Whole Wheat Flour - Whole wheat flour will make a denser bread dough. Add the flour slowly and allow it to incorporate fully before rising. I used whole wheat bread flour today, and you can see that my stars are a little darker and flatter, but overall look perfectly fine!
• All Purpose flour - it's perfectly fine to substitute all-purpose flour for bread flour in this recipe. However, your bread might not rise as high or have as chewy a texture compared to using actual bread flour.
• Fresh Milled Flour - This recipe can be made with fresh milled flour! The star bread will be dense if you don't sift the fresh flour. See note below.

Variations

• Make a savory star bread by substituting pizza sauce for the jam and sprinkling parmesan cheese and italian herbs on top! 
• If you love cinnamon rolls, create a beautiful cinnamon sugar star bread with brown sugar and cinnamon filling. The filing recipe is 1 cup brown sugar, 1 cup sugar, ½ cup butter, 1 ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon. Divide this mixture between both stars. Drizzle the cinnamon star bread with cream cheese frosting for an even fancier star bread.

How to Make Star Bread With Fresh Milled Flour

Before I explain how to convert this recipe, first ask yourself the following question: Do I like eating bread made entirely with whole wheat flour?

If the answer is yes, then cool! You'll use approximately 4 ⅔ cups of wheat berries for this homemade sandwich bread recipe. I like to use hard white or Khorasan, or a combination of both.

I'm not giving you an exact weight, because all wheat berries have a slightly different weight in grams to convert from cups. You can find a conversion chart in my post about How to Make Flour With a Grain Mill.

To make a lighter loaf, I strongly recommend sifting the flour or only using 30% fresh milled wheat and 70% bread flour.

Storage

Star bread is best enjoyed within 3 days. Store your beautiful star at room temperature in a linen bread bag, bread box or parchment bread bag.

However, since it's nearly impossible to find bags and boxes big enough for our stars, the second best option is to wrap it well with plastic wrap. Leftover pieces can be stored in an airtight container.  To learn the Best Way to Store Homemade Bread, read this post!

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