Ginger Star Bread

I’ve wanted to make a bread done with this star shaping for quite sometime so decided that Christmas baking was the perfect time to try it out.  It is fun and pretty easy overall to do.  Because I needed this to be done fairly quickly I didn’t convert this recipe to sourdough and instead just used IDY.

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Makes 2 stars (8 servings each) or 12 rolls.  

Ingredients

3¾ to 4¼ cups all-purpose flour 480 g (4 cups)

4 tsp. ground ginger

4 tsp. ground cinnamon

½ tsp. ground cloves

1 pkg. active dry yeast (1 ¾  tsp. IDY or about 4.9 g)

¾ cup milk (184 g)

1 cup plain mashed potato

⅓ cup butter (76 g)

⅓ cup molasses (93.3 g)

1 tsp. salt

2 eggs

½ cup packed brown sugar

¼ cup butter, melted

Powdered sugar (optional)

HANDS ON 30 min.
RISE 1 hour 15 min.
REST 10 min.
BAKE 20 min. at 375°F

1. In a large bowl stir together 480 g flour, 3 tsp. of the ginger, 1 tsp. of the cinnamon, ¼ tsp. of the cloves, and the yeast. In the bowl of your mixer stir milk, mashed potato, ⅓ cup melted butter, the molasses, eggs and salt. Add flour mixture to the liquid mixture. Mix until gluten is well developed.

2. Turn dough out onto and shape dough into a ball. Place in a lightly greased bowl, turning to grease surface of dough. Cover; let rise until doubled in size (60 to 120 minutes).  Can do a cold retard at this point.

3. Punch dough down. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into eight equal portions. Cover; let rest 10 minutes. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

4. For filling, in a small bowl stir together the brown sugar and remaining 1 tsp. ginger, 3 tsp. cinnamon, and ¼ tsp. cloves.

5. For each star, on a lightly oiled surface roll one portion of dough into a 10-inch round. Place on a prepared sheet. Brush with some of the ¼ cup melted butter. Sprinkle with a slightly rounded Tbsp. of the filling. Repeat two times, stacking rounds. Top with another dough round for a total of four. Brush with melted butter. Place a 2½-inch round cutter in the center of the dough stack, making a slight indent. Use a sharp knife to cut 16 strips, cutting from the cutter to the edge of the stack. Gently twist one of the strips two times. For the strip next to it, twist the strip in the opposite direction. Repeat to make eight arms to the star. Remove cutter. Repeat with remaining four dough rounds and filling. Let rise until nearly double in size (about 30-60 minutes); brush with additional melted butter.

6. Preheat oven to 375°F. Bake 20 minutes or until golden. Once cooled on a rack, dust with powdered sugar (if using). Makes 2 stars (8 servings each).

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I haven’t eaten this yet so cannot report back on my personal experience with it.  However, everyone who has tried has raved about it.  I still have a couple more of these to bake so perhaps I’ll have a chance to actually eat some.

My index of bakes.