Christmas Star Bread
Recipe from Preppy Kitchen, but there's dozens of others on YouTube or Instagram. Actually took way longer than I expected, but mostly because it's my second time making bread.
The issue mostly comes from the fact that John says you let the stand mixer run for about 8-10 minutes, but I had to run it for about 25 minutes + because the dough kept sticking to my hands. It just didn't 'come together' as it should. In the end, I stopped it because I didn't want to overknead, even though I felt like I was about 90% of the way there.
I'm not quite sure what I did wrong. At first, I wondered if I warmed the milk/melted the butter at too high at temp and it did something to the yeast, but everything rose very well (almost too well, as you'll see later) so I'm currently just in the ??? phase of "how would I do better next time".
For rolling it out into a 30-ish cm circle, the trick is to let it rest for about 10 minutes after you cut the dough up into 4 even pieces and make it into a ball. I struggled so much with the first circle, even rolling it back and having a redo, but with each successive layer, it got progressively easier to get a good shape. The dough really needs to relax before you try to shape it.
You can see I pinched the ends together--it helps with getting the circles around the same size.
I would also maybe increase the cinnamon amount from 1 Tbsp to 1.5 or 2 Tbsp. I like cinnamon, and I felt like there wasn't enough of the flavour. Could also throw in a few pinches of nutmeg.
When it comes to cutting the bread into sixteen slices--oh boy, it's actually really difficult in a tray like this. See, the best cut is to just slam your knife down, but the edges of the tray prevent you from doing that. And if you do saw cuts, you're actually pulling the dough and screwing up the shape slightly, and you'll end up with small frayed dough parts that will become visible when you start twisting. I tried to improvise with a pizza cutter, but that didn't work either, because the turning part of the cutter blade was also screwing up the shape.
If you can cut first before transferring on the tray, that'll be the way to go. I simply did not trust myself to lift up the dough on the parchment paper without at least another pair of hands.
You can see I tried my best to pinch the ends together, but after rising for another 20 minutes, they sorta just puff apart and refuse to listen.
The second photo is wonky and blurred because I opened the oven to take a progress pic and got a heat blast right into my face, so it was a photo taken during an "AUGHH" moment. I'm going to stop doing oven progress pics.
Important point though: you must have at least a standard size oven. I've used a smaller oven for 10+ years and this year marks the first I've ever gotten an actual standard sized oven, otherwise I wouldn't even attempt this recipe. You can see that even with a big tray, my star bread actually got smooshed in on two sides
There's way too much white light in my kitchen for photos so I'm aware it doesn't look the best it could be, but I'm very proud! It tastes lovely--if a tiny bit too moist because I wasn't quite aware how much butter to brush in between the layers. I'd say err on the side of less than more.
EDIT: My partner and my flatmate both think it needs more butter flavour. I think the other potential reason it was too moist may also have been due to the fact that my flour brand doesn't absorb as much milk, so I should cut about 40 ml of milk instead for the dough.
You can see the cross section and it tastes as good as it looks!
If I make it again, I'll attempt the orange (zest) chocolate version.