Home / Recipes / Almond Star Bread

Almond Star Bread

Preparation 15 Minutes

Cook 25 Minutes

Serves 6

Method
Ingredients

Method

Preheat the oven to 180℃.

To make the Spiced Almond Cream: place butter and sugar into a stand mixer bowl. Mix for 2 minutes, until smooth. Slowly add the whisked eggs, salt and vanilla and mix again to incorporate. Fold in the almond meal and cinnamon and fold through with a wooden spoon to incorporate.

Slice each piece of puff pastry into 4 x 25cm circles.

Place one dough circle onto a piece of baking paper and spread 1 tablespoon of the Spiced Almond Cream evenly over the top. Stack the next dough circle on top and repeat with more Spiced Almond Cream. Repeat again with the final two dough circles.

Place a round object, about 7-8cm wide into the centre of the circle and make an indent, which becomes the centre of the star.

Cut the dough into 16 evenly spaced strips, starting from the indent to the edge of the dough. Take two strips next to each other and roll them away from each other. Press the two ends together to join. Repeat with the remaining 14 strips until each are twisted and paired up.

Transfer the star on the baking paper to a large baking tray. Brush with egg water wash and sprinkle over the flaked almonds. Place into the oven and bake for 25 minutes until puffed up and golden brown.

Remove from the oven, allow to cool and then dust with icing sugar, to serve.

Ingredients

4 sheets butter puff pastry

1 large egg whisked with 1 tablespoon of water

½ cup Sunbeam Flaked Almonds

¼ cup icing sugar, to serve

Spiced Almond Cream

100g unsalted butter, cubed, at room temperature

100g caster sugar

2 medium eggs, at room temperature, whisked

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup Sunbeam Australian Almond Meal

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Recipe Collection

Reindeer Raisin Bites

Add dark and milk chocolate, raisins, and almonds (excluding reserved almonds) to a food processor and blitz until very finely chopped.
Transfer chocolate to a bowl, pour over the hot thickened cream, add butter and salt and stir to combine. Refrigerate for 3-4 hours until firm but still able to be scooped with a spoon.
To make truffles, scoop 2 heaped tbsp of the mixture and use clean hands to roll into a ball. Repeat with the remaining mixture.
Roll balls in the chocolate sprinkles to coat.
Cut pretzels in half and insert 2 into each ball for antlers.
Just below the antlers, insert slivered almond to form reindeer’s ears.
Use white icing to stick an Ovalteenie to each ball to form a snout.
Use white icing to create two eyeballs just above the mouth. And a dot to each eye with the black gel.
Use the white icing to attach a red mini M&M to the top of each Ovalteenie to give your reindeers noses.
Refrigerate for a further hour to set the icing. Serve cold.

Walnut & Sultana Monkey Bread

Prepare the dough: The dough comes together with a mixer. You can also make the dough by hand, but it requires a bit of arm muscle. After the dough comes together in the mixing bowl, it’s time to knead. You can simply continue beating the dough with the mixer for this step or you can knead the dough by hand.

Let the dough rise: The dough rises in about 1-2 hours in a relatively warm environment.

Punch down the dough: Punch down the dough to release the air.

Shape & coat dough balls: Pull off little pieces of dough and roll into balls. Dunk the balls into melted butter, then coat with cinnamon sugar. Little bakers love to help out with this step! Good thing to note: the heavier the cinnamon-sugar coating, the more these little monkey bread bites will taste like gooey cinnamon rolls.

Let the shaped monkey bread rest for 20 minutes: Arrange the coated balls in a flat oven proof pan or a cast iron pan, cover lightly, then set aside to rest as you preheat the oven. The balls will slightly rise during this time.

Top with buttery brown sugar sauce: Before baking the monkey bread, mix melted butter, brown sugar, and vanilla extract together. Stir in the nuts. Pour any remaining sauce sauce all over the dough balls.

Bake:

Bake until the top is lightly browned, about 40 minutes.

Invert onto serving plate: Allow the monkey bread to cool for 5-10 minutes, then invert it onto a serving plate.

Drizzle with vanilla icing: Whisk confectioners’ sugar, milk, and vanilla extract together until smooth. Drizzle all over the warm monkey bread. Top with extra nuts

Sultana & White Chocolate Shortbread

Beat the butter and sugar until creamy, approximately 2-3 minutes, add the sifted flour, when almost combined add the sultanas, choc chips & continue to beat with the flat beaters until a firm dough is obtained, be aware that it does take time to bring it together. If you knead by hand it will take approximately 4 minutes of kneading.
Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for 30-60 minutes or even overnight.
Remove the dough from the fridge, and if very firm, gently knead, place the dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper and roll to ¼ inch thickness, cut out with your feastive cookie cutters, place on the prepared cookie sheets. Refrigerate the cookies while the oven is pre-heating, for about 15 minutes.
Pre-heat the oven to 160C. Line 1 or 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.
Bake the cookies for approximately 10 minutes. Remove from the oven, let sit 2-3 minutes on the cookie sheet then move to a wire rack to cool completely.
Enjoy!

Mini Fruit Tarts

Preheat oven to 200°C.

Add fruit mince in an even layer into tart case.

Cut out star shapes from shortcrust sheet.

Brush each pastry shape with beaten egg and place pastry egg-side down on fruit mince.

Bake tart about 20 minutes or until browned lightly. Dust with a little sifted icing sugar before serving.