Herb, Parmesan and Olive Star Bread

 

Someone took a bite out of the star bread!

On a lovely Fall Saturday we were invited to a friend's milestone birthday party and were asked to contribute a potluck dish. The party was at an outdoor picnic pavilion in the afternoon and we weren't    quite sure what to bring. So, I decided to make a Star Bread. Although it has a several steps, it's a reliably easy recipe and always makes an impact.

I got up early the morning of the party to get the dough going for this recipe  from King Arthur Flour. Pretty soon I realized that the last time I made a savory star bread I had plenty of pesto and prosciutto at hand whereas now I did not. Instead, I decided to make an Herb-Parmesan-Kalamata Olive Bread since that's all I could find for the filling!  I followed the instructions to brush each layer with egg wash and also brushed it very lightly with olive oil.  I sprinkled dried thyme, garlic powder, shredded parmesan and olives on two of the layers and on the other one I used basil and garlic powder.  

About the egg wash, I had a lot of egg yolks at hand from making Swiss Meringue Buttercream. So instead of cracking open another egg, I diluted an egg yolk with milk and used this in between the layers and brushed it on top of the bread before it went into the oven.

When the bread came out of the oven, I could immediately tell it looked different from every other Star Bread I've made.  It looked like an Easter brioche, very golden and shiny and "tight" somehow.  The egg yolk wash made for a drier crust. 

When I tried the bread at the party, I wasn't very happy with it. It was a bit dry and lacking in taste. Not using pesto made quite a difference. In the future if there is no pesto it needs to be brushed with olive oil more generously and it needs more salt than just the 1/2 teaspoon the recipe calls for. It also needs more Parmesan cheese between the layers. You could hardly taste the Parmesan and in fact you couldn't really taste the herbs. You could barely taste the olives.  The predominant taste was just plain bread.

I wasn't too upset about all this because there was so much food on the buffet table that the focus wasn't on this bread at all. I'll do better next time making it tastier.

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