Stunning Christmas Star Bread Made With Fresh Milled Flour
Just look at this Stunning Christmas Star Bread Made With Fresh Milled Flour! This recipe is a soft and delicious cinnamon swirl Brioche bread recipe! I will walk you through the recipe and how to make this beautiful shape! So, don’t worry, it is not as hard as you may think it is! Also, If you are better at visual, checkout my video on this bread HERE.
Can You Make Brioche With Whole Wheat Flour?
Yes! You can make Brioche with whole wheat flour! This recipe is for fresh milled wheat, which is, the freshest whole wheat flour! Making Brioche with fresh milled flour is definitely more challenging than making it with bread flour. But, If you follow this recipe, and knead until you reach the window pane success, then the results will yield an amazing loaf or two of bread!
What Is Brioche Bread?
Brioche bread is an enriched, soft, pillowy, delicious bread that serves well in sweet or savory recipes. So, technically, Brioche should be a minimum of 32% butter content to be considered Brioche. This makes Brioche Bread, a sweeter more indulgent bread, with a beautiful golden color. So delicious I might add.
Is Brioche A Bread Or Cake?
Brioche is known as a bread to many, but technically, it is considered a Viennoiserie. This is because it is made similar to yeasted bread, but has an abundance of butter, and usually eggs, milk, and sugar. So, this makes it more like a pastry. But, I will always consider it a bread, because I make it similar to my other bread recipes, it uses yeast to rise, and I knead it like bread.
Christmas Star Bread With Cinnamon, But Can I Use Other Fillings?
Yes! This bread is very versatile! So, try this recipe plain in a bread tin for regular Brioche Bread loafs, or shape them into buns. Also, if you want to make the fancier Star bread, try using Nutella, or cinnamon apples, or cinnamon raisin, the possibilities are endless!
Ingredients For Christmas Star Bread With Fresh Milled Flour
- 2&1/4 cup fresh milled flour (280g) (I mill 1&1/2 cup of hard wheat berries to get this)
- 1/4 cup hot milk
- 1/4 cup water
- 6 TBSP softened butter (90g), but not melted
- 3 eggs, room temperature
- 3 TBSP sugar (38g)
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract (I love to make my own as I do HERE)
- 1/2 tsp Cardamom *optional
- 1 tsp salt
- 2 tsp instant yeast (8g)
Ingredients For Filling
- 1 Egg (for egg wash)
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 TBSP cinnamon
Instructions For Making This Fresh Milled Flour Christmas Star Bread Recipe
- Firstly, Mill the flour
- Heat milk until scalded (just before boiling), then add water to that to cool.
- Pour milk mixture into mixing bowl, and add sugar, vanilla, eggs, softened butter(cubed), salt, & Cardamom (if using), mix until combined.
- Add flour to wet ingredients and mix until all combined
- Let this mixture sit for at least 10 minutes up to 1 hour, Covered.
- Then add instant yeast, and mix until combined.
- Once the dough begins to form a small ball, then turn the mixing speed up to level 2 to begin the kneading process.
- Knead until dough passes the window pane test, which you can find HERE in this short video.
- Once dough is kneaded, cover and let rest for 1-2 hours or until doubled.
- Then, after the first rise, divide dough into 4 equal portions. Shape each piece into a ball, and cover. Let these sit for 15 minutes to relax. (It is helpful to use olive oil on your work surface and hands to help keep this dough from sticking.
- While these are resting, make egg wash & filling
Shaping The Christmas Star Bread
12. Next, roll or press one ball into a 10 inch circle on a parchment paper lined pizza pan.
Brush the first 10 inch disk with egg wash, then sprinkle with 1/3 of the filling mixture. But, make sure to leave about 1/4 inch bare around the edge without filling.
13. Roll or press out the next ball into the same size disk, and repeat with the egg wash and filling
14. Then repeat one more time with the third ball.
15. For the last ball, roll or press out into the same size disk, but don’t put any filling on top.
16. Lay that last disk on the top of the pile, and make sure they all line up.
17. Place a biscuit cutter (or 3 inch glass) on the top of the dough, but don’t press down all the way, just make an indent for a guide.
18. Now, use a bench scraper or sharp knife to cut the dough. Cut the circle into 16 equal size strips, making sure to not cut into the center circle guide. Make sure to cut all the way through all the layer
19. Pick up two strips next to each other, and twist them 2 times away from each other. Then half way again and press the ends together.
20. Repeat the twists and pinching the ends together with all 8 pairs.
21. Remove the biscuit cutter, and cover the whole star to rise for 30- 45 minutes.
Baking The Star Bread
22. Preheat oven to 400*F
23. Then, after the star bread dough has risen, brush the top with remaining egg wash.
24. Bake for 15-18 minutes. Until the internal temperature reaches 200*F
25. Remove star bread from the oven, and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.
26. Finally, You can dust the loaf with powdered sugar if you desire.
If You Want To Learn More About Milling Your Own Flour, I have a Fresh Milled Flour 101 post.
Stunning Christmas Star Bread with Cinnamon and Fresh Milled Flour – Video
Checkout Some Of My Other Recipes
Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies – Spelt
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My Mixer (they have been discontinued, so when this link is sold out, they are gone— sad)
My Oven with Proofing feature
Christmas Star Bread Made With Fresh Milled Flour
Christmas Star Bread – Fresh Milled Flour
Ingredients
- 2&1/4 cup Fresh milled flour 280g (I mill 1&1/2 cup of hard wheat berries to get this)
- 1/4 cup hot milk
- 1/4 cup water
- 6 TBSP softened butter 90g, but not melted
- 3 eggs room temperature
- 3 TBSP sugar 38g
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
- 1/2 tsp Cardamom *optional
- 1 tsp salt 4g
- 2 tsp instant yeast 8g
Ingredients For Filling
- 1 Egg (for egg wash)
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 TBSP cinnamon
Instructions
- Mill the flour
- Heat milk until scalded (just before boiling), then add water to that to cool.
- Pour milk mixture into mixing bowl, and add sugar, vanilla, eggs, softened butter(cubed), salt, & Cardamom (if using), mix until combined.
- Add flour to wet ingredients and mix until all combined
- Let this mixture sit for at least 10 minutes up to 1 hour. Covered
- Then add instant yeast, and mix until combined.
- Once the dough begins to form a small ball, then turn the mixing speed up to level 2 to begin the kneading process.
- Knead until dough passes the window pane test, you can find the window pane test video on this post.
- Once dough is kneaded, cover and let rest for 1-2 hours or until doubled.
- After the first rise, divide dough into 4 equal portions. Shape each piece into a ball, and cover. Let these sit for 15 minutes to relax. (It is helpful to use olive oil on your work surface and hands to help keep this dough from sticking.
- While these are resting, make egg wash & filling
- Next, roll or press one ball into a 10 inch circle on a parchment paper lined pizza pan.
- Brush the first 10 inch disk with egg wash, then sprinkle with 1/3 of the filling mixture. Make sure to leave about 1/4 inch bare around the edge without filling.
- Roll or press out the next ball into the same size disk, and repeat with the egg wash and filling
- Repeat one more time with the third ball.
- For the last ball, roll or press out into the same size disk, but don’t put any filling on top.
- Lay that last disk on the top of the pile, and make sure they all line up.
- Place a biscuit cutter (or 3 inch glass) on the top of the dough, but don’t press down all the way, just make an indent for a guide.
- Now, use a bench scraper or sharp knife to cut the dough. Cut the circle into 16 equal size strips, making sure to not cut into the center circle guide. Make sure to cut all the way through all the layer
- Pick up two strips next to each other, and twist them 2 times away from each other. Then half way again and press the ends together.
- Repeat the twists and pinching the ends together with all 8 pairs.
- Remove the biscuit cutter, and cover the whole star to rise for 30- 45 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 400*F
- After the star bread dough has risen, brush the top with remaining egg wash.
- Bake for 15-18 minutes. Until the internal temperature reaches 200*F
- Remove star bread from the oven, and allow to cool for at least 10 minutes before serving.
- You can dust the loaf with powdered sugar if you desire.
Video
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This star is gorgeous! It is time-consuming, but it is beautiful! Your directions are easy to read, and the video is a huge bonus. Thank you for all that you do.
Thank you so much!
I needed much more flour than called for in the recipe. Any thoughts on why that would be?
I like to work with a very wet dough, it looks too wet when I first start, but then when I let it sit, the fresh milled flour has time to absorb the liquids. Then, over the kneading time, the dough comes together. But, with every recipe, the flour can vary a bit, the humidity, elevation, how you scoop the flour, even down to the moisture level in the wheat berries themselves can all vary with each batch. I try to resist adding more flour when I can, fresh milled flour varies greatly than from baking with white flour, where we put flour in until it forms a ball. I like to give the fresh milled flour that extra time to absorb the liquids, so if we make it into a ball of dough at the beginning, it will end up with a product that is too dry, denser, and crumbly. I hope that helps! Happy Baking!
Thank you! I doubled the recipe and made eight mini stars to give as gifts to my son’s teachers for Christmas. They turned out perfectly. I also had to add quite a bit more flour after letting it soak, but we test tasted one and it was light, fluffy, and delicious! Can they be made a head and frozen? If so before rising/baking, after baking? Is par-baking an option?
Thank you and Merry Christmas!
That is a great idea! I do like to work with a wet dough. I am so happy they turned out delicious! I like to let them cool completely, and the same day I bake it place it in a freezer safe bag or container, then freeze. To eat, just let it thaw on the counter for a couple hours. You can warm it up the day you want to eat it. Hope that helps!
Yes it does, very much, thank you! I’m new to milling and bread baking, so I get nervous when I make bread for people outside my family.
I understand that feeling, I felt that way too! I still do sometimes, like I don’t know if they will like it or not. But, I realized that it did me no good to worry, because if they didn’t like it they didn’t like it. But, I still want to share the goodness that is fresh milled flour! I will give you a hint though, most people do enjoy it! And they know it is much healthier, even if they are eating a cookie! It’s ok to practice a little bit, and have a few recipes you have mastered, and that way you know there won’t be an issue. You can do it!
Just made this–oh my, that dough is so very soft and sticky. I added a little more flour, but didn’t want to add too much. Wish I had added a bit more, as it was very difficult to cut and form due to stickiness. I’m trying something different. They are formed and in the refrigerator. I’ll take them out Christmas morning and let rise and bake. Hopefully that works, or everyone gets a bowl of oatmeal.
Yes, This is a very sticky dough. It does help to use olive oil on your hands and work surface for next time! Great job thinking on your toes, and forming them into something else! They will be delicious! Merry Christmas!
I have been milling fresh flour for less than a year and really enjoy your videos and recipes so much. Can I make this recipe and form it today, and then place in refrigerator before last rise so I can bake it fresh tomorrow? Thank you!
Normally I would say yes, and the answer is still kind of yes, lol. The only reason you may have an issue with this particular bread is because of the cinnamon and sugar. So, as the dough sits with the cinnamon and sugar, the cinnamon and sugar continues to soak up all the moisture, and this ends up making the cinnamon and sugar run and make a mess. SO, since this is a delicious edible “show piece” it may not be as pretty. I would say you could make the dough until it is ready for the first rise, and cover pop it in the fridge. Then when you want to finish it pull the dough out, and let it come to room temperature (1.5-2 hours) Then, continue with the shaping and second rise. OR you could make it completely, then let it cool completely (try to resist eating it) then pop it in the freezer. Let it thaw at room temp the morning you want to serve it, and you can even warm it up after it thaws. I hope this helped! Happy Baking!