Star Bread

The Prettiest Bread

While star bread is beautiful and perfect when served any time of the year, I almost feel like it was created especially for Christmas morning. It has a beautiful and intricate design, sometimes sprinkled with coarse sugar (my preference) and sometimes dusted with a snowy sprinkle of powdered sugar. Move aside basic breakfasts: pancakes, waffles, and crepes (and you know how much I love all of those!)… star bread is destined to be the showstopper of any table that it graces with its presence. While it appears complex and difficult, really the dough itself isn’t particularly fussy and the technique is much simpler than you would think by looking at it. The base of this star bread is a sweet dough, and it’s the same one I used to make my sweet bread and my sticky buns (so maybe you’ve already tried it!). It’s perfectly buttery, soft, and tender without being too rich. It’s my favorite sweet dough in the world. Let’s talk briefly about some of the ingredients…

What You Need to Make Star Bread

Flour. Either all-purpose or bread flour will work for this recipe. Do not use self-rising flour.Yeast. I use active dry but include notes in the recipe if you need to substitute instant/rapid rise.Milk & water. I use both for a bread that’s both rich and tender and light and fluffy.Eggs. We’re using one large egg and then one yolk. The extra yolk makes the bread extra soft and tender. You can save the egg white and brush the top of the bread with just the white (rather than the egg wash reh recipe calls for), the bread just won’t bake as golden.Butter. This bread is enriched with eggs and with a fair bit of butter, but we’ll also be using the butter for the filling. Sugar. Granulated sugar in the bread dough, brown sugar in the filling, and coarse sugar (I use Sugar in the Raw turbinado but if you can’t find coarse sugar you can just use more granulated sugar) on top.

This is just an overview of some of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!

How To Make a Beautiful Star out of Your Dough

Let the dough rest for 30 minutes after preparing (cover it with a clean towel) and then if you’d like you can brush it lightly with egg wash and sprinkle with coarse sugar. This gives it a golden brown exterior and crisp sweet topping. Bake until golden brown. Tip: Over-baking bread is one of the quickest ways to make it too dry! If you want a surefire way to tell if the star bread has finished baking, insert a thermometer in the center and look for a temperature of 185-190F.