Prune Star Bread

Doesn't this look beautiful? I need to remember this recipe when the holidays arrive. Here's the inspiration recipe. If you can't understand my directions on how to form the finished product, you can find a video at that website.

Prune Star Bread

• 1 cup whole milk
• 2 1/2 teaspoons yeast
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 3-4 cups flour
• 1 cup oat flour (powderized oats)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• about 1 1/2 cups Prune Puree**
• Egg Wash

Heat the milk in the microwave for 30 seconds or until warm. Stir in the yeast and 1 teaspoon sugar and let set until bubbly. Add the butter. In the bread mixer, combine 3 cups flour, oat flour, 1/2 cup sugar and salt. Stir in the yeast mixture, then the eggs and mix well. If necessary, stir in additional flour until it makes a soft dough. Knead for 5 minutes.

Cover and let rise until double, 1-2 hours.

Divide the dough into 4 balls. Roll each one out. Use a salad plate to cut a circle, then spread three of them with prune puree (or prune butter, which to me seems to be the same thing). Do this one at a time on the baking sheet. Then top with the fourth circle.

Cut into 16 slices, without going all the way to the center. Placing a small glass in the center helps prevent this. Take two adjacent slices, twist them towards each other 2-3 times, then pinch the tips together. Repeat around the circle. This forms the star shape.

Let rise another 25-30 minutes. Brush with an egg wash and bake for 25 minutes in a preheated 350 degree oven.

**Prune Puree - There's a recipe for Prune Butter on the other website, but I had leftover Prune Puree from making brownies, so I used that. Basically the process is the same - cook some prunes in water until soft, drain off the liquid and mash the prunes, adding back the liquid to reach the desired consistency, and stirring in some vanilla and/or sugar if desired.

I rolled the leftover dough (from cutting into nice circles) into another circle, spread it with more prune puree, cut wedges and rolled them up. We don't believe in wasting good food! Yummy, yummy, yummy!