There comes a time when you look into your fridge and go “I got to get rid of some of this stuff.”
While I was going through the fridge I stumbled upon a chunk of parmesan cheese bought weeks before for something – pizza or a pasta bake of some kind- and which was now waiting forlornly on a back shelf to be put to good use. I like a good cheese and crackers spread but thought I should use the Parmesan for something a little fancier and that was when I found this wonderful pesto-parmesan star bread! I have the link at the end of the post.
The bread pictured is smaller than the recipe, mostly because only had half the amount of parmesan and pesto the recipe called for, so I ended up making the bread half-sized.
Aside from only having half the filling called for in the recipe everything else went really well for my first time doing the recipe. The yeast rose beautifully when added to the dough, and the dough rolled out well when it came time for the assembly.
Things got a little messy when assembling the star bread. In order to make it you cut the dough in 4ths, then roll out each dough disk and brush each with an egg wash. You add a topping (it was layered parmesan, pesto, parmesan) and then top it with one last circle of dough. Then, keeping a center portion separate, you cut the edges into 16 even wedges and twist them to make the rays of the star.
The first mess came from the egg wash. Trying to seal the layer after layer made a mess, especially with the pesto coming out from the middle layer. Then there was actually twisting the “arms” of the star. Maybe it was because the bread was only half sized (five inches across instead of nine) but it seemed unexpectedly hard to twist the arms. Part of it was because it was so skinny, part of it because the pesto and egg wash mix spilling out of the middle layer made the dough slippery and hard to keep a grip on.
All together the bread came out well, and even better it tasted great! Since it was half size we used it mostly for snacking but when we make it again (full size this time) we’ll have to try it as a side with a nice pasta dinner.
Link: https://floralapron.com/pesto-parmesan-star-bread/
