Sourdough Christmas Tree Pull Apart Bread with Cheese + Garlic
This gorgeous sourdough Christmas Tree Pull Apart bread will delight your family and friends with delicious cheese and garlic butter stuffed into each little roll. Perfect for Christmas entertaining with sourdough.
Equipment
- Stand Mixer
- Digital Scale
- Star Cookie Cutter
- Large Baking Sheet
- Pastry Brush
Ingredients
Dough
- 500 g Bread Flour
- 100 g Sourdough Starter Fed and bubbly
- 200 g Milk Warm 37C
- 80 g Water Room temp
- 20 g Sugar Fine white
- 30 g Butter
- 10 g Salt
Filling
- 150 g Mozarella Shredded
- 50 g Parmesan Cheese Shredded
- 50 g Butter
- 5 g Garlic powder
Garlic Butter Topping
- 10 g Salt
- 60 g Butter
- 5 g Garlic Powder
- 20 g Parmesan Cheese Shredded
Instructions
- Add warm milk, water and sugar to the bowl of your stand mixer. Mix until the sugar is dissolved.
- Now add the flour and sourdough starter and use the stand mixer to knead into a rough dough. Allow to rest for around 30 minutes.
- Add the salt and butter and knead the dough until it is silky and elastic. This is such a lovely dough it should be very easy to handle.
- Transfer the dough to a bowl and allow it bulk ferment until the dough has risen around 30%.
Cheese and Garlic Filling
- While the dough is fermenting, it's time to make the filling for the bread rolls.
- Add mozarella, parmesan, butter and garlic to a food processor and blitz until it forms a thick paste. Place this into the fridge to chill until you need it.
Shaping & Filling the Bread Rolls
- Once the dough has finished the bulk ferment, you will need to shape and fill the bread rolls with the garlic cheese filling.
- Weigh out the dough into whatever size balls you'd like. I've done them at 40g.
- Take each piece of dough and add a small ball of filling (approx. 7g) to the centre. Pinch the dough around the filling and gently roll into a ball.
- Once you have filled and shaped all of the bread rolls, arrange them on a tray to form the shape of a Christmas tree. Cut out a star if you like and elongate one of the rolls to form the trunk.
- Cover the Christmas Tree and allow the rolls to proof and get nice and puffy. See notes for using the fridge for proofing.
Baking the Christmas Tree
- Preheat the oven to 180C/356F.
- Take the ingredients for the garlic butter topping and blend together. Using a pastry brush, lightly brush a little onto each bread roll (save the rest for when the Christmas Tree comes out of the oven).
- Bake the Christmas Tree at 180-C/356F for approximately 20 minutes or until the rolls are golden brown.
- Take the Christmas Tree out of the oven and brush on the rest of garlic butter topping so that it melts into the rolls. Sprinkle with fresh rosemary or whatever herbs you would like.
- Transfer onto a cooling rack and allow to cool a little before serving (you want it to be warm but not scalding hot).
- Serve with Marinara Sauce for dipping.
Notes
This recipe has been created using a stand mixer (Thermomix) to knead the dough. I found this the quickest and easiest way to get a silky and elastic dough (particularly with butter). You can knead it by hand but you'll need to really work the dough to get it silky and elastic and to get the gluten to form.
If you want to use the fridge to cold proof these rolls, I suggest allowing them to rise a little bit after shaping and then placing into the fridge. Allow them to come back to room temp before baking. They really do need to be soft and risen before you bake them or they will be tough and dense once baked.
Nutrition
Serving: 40g Calories: 321kcal Carbohydrates: 35g Protein: 11g Fat: 15g Saturated Fat: 9g Polyunsaturated Fat: 1g Monounsaturated Fat: 4g Trans Fat: 1g Cholesterol: 41mg Sodium: 910mg Potassium: 91mg Fiber: 1g Sugar: 3g Vitamin A: 449IU Vitamin C: 1mg Calcium: 161mg Iron: 1mg
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