This chocolate orange Christmas star bread is ready for your holiday celebrations. A zesty soft and fluffy dough hugs the delicate chocolate spread in this pull apart star bread.
If you are looking for the ideal dessert or even breakfast for this fast approaching holiday season, look no further. This chocolate orange star bread is waiting for you to make it! This recipe is easy to make and an ideal dessert to prepare ahead, so you don’t have to stress the day of your planned celebrations. Plus it will leave your kitchen smelling amazing and so Christmassy with that orange smell swirling around the air. The best part of this dessert is that it’s pull apart! Just leave it in the middle of the table and let everyone serve themselves by pulling a piece away.
The dough
For this chocolate Orange Christmas star bread, I have adapted slightly my morning buns recipe. If you still haven’t tried them, check them out here! Instead of keeping the dough plain, I decided to infuse it with orange by mixing in orange zest and some freshly squeezed orange juice. By putting the orange directly in the dough, I made sure that the orange isn’t overpowering and gets distributed evenly throughout the whole dessert. However, if you want to increase the orange flavour in this recipe, I suggest that you put some freshly grated orange zest on top of the chocolate spread while building up this star bread.
Shaping the star bread
The most intimidating part for many is shaping the star bread. However, don’t worry, it’s really easy to make. After layering the layer of dough and filling them with a generous layer of chocolate spread, grab a glass and make a small indent in the middle with it. It’s important to not cut through and don’t use too much pressure here, we only need this indent as a guide to help us cut the strands.
Start by cutting the circle into quarters, start cutting from the ring indent outwards. Think of it as a clock, cut the 12, 3, 6, 9. Afterwards, cut each quarter in half and now you should have eight strands. Now cut in half again each eight strand; in total you should have 16 strands now. Simply grab two strands next to each other and twist them twice in opposite directions. Once twisted grab the edges of the strands and stick them together so that the star points start to form. Repeat until all the strands are connected together and have a pointed edge. That’s it! You see how easy that was!
Other toppings
Here, I specifically chose to flavour this star bread with chocolate and orange. However, you can really have fun with this and make as many flavours as you want, such as the classic cinnamon and butter combination, just chocolate, or with some jam . You can even make it savoury by filling it with pesto or cheese!
Chocolate Orange Christmas Star Bread
Ingredients
For the Dough:
- 400 g bread flour
- 50 g butter room temperature
- 1 medium egg + 1 egg for egg wash
- 5 g salt
- 7 g active dry yeast or 13g fresh yeast
- 25 g caster sugar
- 150 ml full fat milk lukewarm
- 30 ml fresh orange juice
- orange zest of 1 orange
For the Filling
- 150 g chocolate spread
Instructions
- If using active dry yeast, in a small bowl mix the sugar and yeast in the lukewarm milk and let the yeast activate for about 15 minutes until foamy. If using fresh yeast, crumble the yeast in the flour before starting mixing the dough.
- To a mixer with a dough hook, add all the dough ingredients. Mix on a low speed for about 5 minutes, then increase the speed to medium and mix for a further 12 minutes until the dough comes away from the bowl. If you are kneading by hand, knead until you get a soft and smooth dough, after about 15 minutes of kneading.
- Form the dough, move into a bowl and let it rest in a warm place covered for an hour or two until it doubles in size.
- Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Set aside.
- When the dough is ready, punch it down and knead for a couple of minutes. Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces. Roll each piece thinly into a circular shape of about 30cm and with a plate cut around it to remove any excess dough.
- Place the dough on the prepared baking tray. Spread 1/3 of the chocolate spread on top. Place another piece of rolled dough on top, and repeat this step two more times. Until you have four pieces of dough with three chocolate layers.
- Once all the layers are done, grab a small glass and make a small circular indent in the middle of the layered dough. Be careful not to cut through, we just need a light marking to guide us with the cuttings.
- Start by cutting four quarters from the ring indent outwards. Then divide those quarters in halves and and do the same to the eight sections. At the end, you should have 16 equals strands coming out from the ring indent.
- Take two strands that are next to each other, and twist them opposite each other two times. Connect the strands edges together well. Repeat with all the strands until you have created a star.
- Cover the star dough with a towel and let it rest for 30 minutes. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 180°C or 350°F.
- Brush the star bread with the egg wash and bake them for about 20 minutes, until golden.
- Before transferring to a cooling rack, let rest for about 5 minutes on the baking tray. Sprinkle some icing sugar and serve warm. Enjoy!
Notes
- If you want to increase the orange taste, sprinkle some orange zest on the chocolate spread too.
- With this recipe you can either make a large 30cm star bread or two 15cm ones.
If you have any questions, feedback or comments on this recipe, please leave a comment below. Please also rate this recipe by double clicking on the stars below. If you did make this recipe, tag @apronandwhisk and hashtag #apronandwhisk, as I’m curious to see what you create!
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It is a beautiful Christmas desert! Love tge look and “feel” of it! Will do it soon with my daughter! Lots of 😘😘😘
Thanks a lot <3 It's really fun to do, especially with kids 😁