Last week you made Japanese Milk Bread. The week before that, cinnamon rolls. Both of those bakes taught you something specific: how to handle enriched dough. How butter, eggs, and milk change everything about how dough feels, how it ferments, and how it bakes. This week, we’re putting all of that to work. We’re making Star Bread. If you’ve never seen one, picture this: a soft, buttery, filled bread shaped into a beautiful twisted star pattern that looks like it came out of a professional bakery. It’s the kind of bread people set in the center of a table and just stare at before they tear into it. Here’s the thing. It looks complicated. It’s not. If you made milk bread last week, you already have the hands for this. The dough is familiar. The technique is new, but I’ll walk you through every fold, every cut, every twist. Here’s how the week breaks down: https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/henrys-savory-star-bread?utm_source=skool&utm_medium=community&utm_campaign=recipe-share Tuesday - We talk about laminating fillings into enriched dough. What works, what doesn’t, and why your filling choice matters more than you think. Wednesday - The geometry of star bread. I’ll break down the shaping method so it makes sense before you ever touch dough. Circles, stacking, cutting, twisting. We’ll cover it all. Thursday - Filling options and flavor combinations. Sweet, savory, and a few you haven’t thought of yet. Friday - Prep day. Get your dough made, your filling ready, and your workspace set. We go live Saturday morning. Saturday - Bake-along. You know the drill. I’m here all day. Yeasted and sourdough versions will both be available on the Recipe Pantry. A few weeks ago, some of you had never made enriched dough. Now you’ve done cinnamon rolls and milk bread. Star bread is the next step, and it’s the one that’s going to make people ask “you made that?” when they see it on your counter.

This is it. We're making Japanese Milk Bread today. If you've never worked with tangzhong before, today's the day you learn why this technique changes everything. We cook a small portion of flour and milk into a paste before it goes into the dough. That paste traps moisture and keeps this bread impossibly soft for days. It's the reason Japanese bakery bread feels like a cloud and your regular sandwich loaf doesn't. This dough is enriched: butter, eggs, milk, sugar. It's going to feel different from lean doughs. Softer. Stickier. Richer. Don't panic and don't add extra flour. Trust the process. The stand mixer does the heavy lifting here, and the dough will come together. 📱 Recipe Pantry Tip: At the top of every recipe page, look for the little chef's hat icon on the right side of the nav bar. Click it. That keeps your screen awake so you're not tapping your phone with floury elbows. The crescent moon next to it toggles dark mode if your kitchen is bright. 🔗 The Recipe: https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/japanese-milk-bread?variant=yeasted Before you start: - Take your butter, eggs, and milk out of the fridge NOW. Room temperature ingredients matter today. - Make your tangzhong first. It needs to cool before it goes into the dough. If you made it last night, even better. - Clear your counter. You'll need space for shaping. Post your questions, your progress photos, your tangzhong shots, your shaped loaves, your finished bread. Everything goes here so we can all learn from each other. I'm here all day, start to finish. Whether you're mixing right now or pulling your loaf out tonight, this thread stays open. Let's see those milk breads. 👇

@Jill Hart here is the Sourdough Granola recipe that I used. @Tracy Havlik gave it to me. Happy Baking!,, Sourdough Granola Yields approximately 1 1/4 pounds Ingredients 350 g (3 cups) old-fashioned oats 250-350 g (1 1/2-2 cups) chopped nuts (I use 100 g each of almonds and pecans, and 150 g of walnuts) 100 g (1/2 cup) neutral oil (I use avocado) 80 g (1/4 cup) pure maple syrup 55 g (1/4 cup) brown sugar 120 g (1/2 cups) sourdough discard 60 g (1/4 cup) water 1 g (1/2 tsp) ground cinnamon (I measure with my heart, so I use 3 g) 3 g (1/2 tsp) salt 150 g (1 cup) dried cranberries Instructions Preheat oven to 300 F Line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper (I use a 15”x21” sheet) Mix together oil, maple syrup, brown sugar, discard, water, cinnamon and salt. Whisk until smooth. Add oats, chopped nuts and/or seeds. Mix together with a rubber spatula until fully coated. Mix in the dried cranberries. Pour the granola on the prepared baking sheet. If you prefer larger clusters, press the granola down with the rubber spatula just before it goes into the oven. Place in preheated oven and bake for a total of 1 hour or until golden in color. Note, if you prefer larger clusters, flip the granola after the first 30 minutes, patting it back down. Otherwise, stir it every 15 minutes. Allow the granola to cool before breaking it into clumps.

As I worked on cooking dinner today I had sourdough bells ringing in my ear. 😅😅 So I turned a thought into reality and baked the fluffiest, softest, most delicious dinner rolls. The recipe is what I call a hybrid because it uses both sourdough and yeast. But the wonderful thing about these rolls are they only need 2 hours of rise time. Yep! 1 hr 20m on the first rise & 40m on the second rise and they're puffed up beautifully and ready for the oven. I brushed milk mixed with honey over the tops BEFORE they baked and then gave them a very nice honey butter bath as soon as they came out of the oven. It only took 22m in my oven to get an internal temperature of 195*F in the center of the pan. The recipe makes 9 - 90g rolls. As you see, I doubled the recipe. Here's the link if you're feeling like rolls tomorrow or any time when you're in a time crunch. Btw, I used active starter... because I wanted to 😜 Sourdough Discard Pull-Apart Dinner Rolls – Milk and Pop https://share.google/HlQJESLpauR9DQQAr

Tomorrow we’re baking Japanese Milk Bread together in the Saturday Bake-Along, and I’m going to be honest with you, I’ve been walking around today looking for excuses to make a sandwich. Toast. Anything. You see that crumb? Those layers? That’s what tangzhong does, and once you know how to make it, there’s no going back. The recipe is live in the Recipe Pantry right now. https://pantry.bakinggreatbread.com/recipes/japanese-milk-bread?variant=yeasted Get your ingredients together tonight so you’re ready to bake with us in the morning. Are you baking with us tomorrow? 👇 Dropw your answer below: