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You will love the incredible flavor of this Sourdough Chai Spice Star with the combination of cinnamon, ginger, clove, cardamom, and a hint of black pepper. Even if you don’t like chai tea, this is a treat!

Learn the steps, timing instructions, sourdough tips, and troubleshooting to make this spicy and sweet bread in this post.

It looks so impressive, but as you will learn in this post and see in the video, it is not as difficult as it appears!

What is Star Bread?

Star bread is made with an enriched dough. It can be filled with savory or sweet fillings and is made with 4 layers of dough.

It takes some time to put the layers together but is not difficult to make if you follow the steps.

This bread is popular because it is visually stunning! It can be used for different occasions but it is most often made for winter and Christmas celebrations

Benefits and Differences of Sourdough in Chai Spice Star Bread

Sourdough creates incredible flavor and texture which makes it a treat for knowledgable foodies. Additionally, using sourdough recipes like this one and the long fermentation creates a more digestible bread which makes everyone feel better about enjoying sweet sourdough bread.

There are some major differences you will see between this sourdough chai spice star bread and one that is made with conventional yeast. The biggest difference is the timing. The timing with sourdough is about 3 times longer.

Due to the shorter fermentation in conventional yeast recipes, those recipe add more sugar and sometimes butter/fat to create more flavor in the shorter timeframe. Sourdough recipes have the advantage of the long fermentation for incredible flavors to develop without loading our dough with sugar.

Here are the sourdough benefits listed for you:

Sourdough breaks down the gluten proteins into smaller pieces during the long fermentation which means less stomach and digestive irritation. Learn more about sourdough here or get my free sourdough quick start guide.
Sourdough breads begin with a starter or levain which is a mixture of flour, water, and sourdough starter that ferments for 6-12 hours on average to develop an incredible intense flavor that enhances every ingredient in the bread!
Because sourdough breads ferment for a long time, flavor naturally develops as carbohydrates in the bread are broken down into simpler sugars. This means that less sugar is used in the dough formula.
Sourdough timelines are more forgiving than conventional yeast timelines. Breads made with conventional yeast can overproof if a timeline is missed; which happens easily due to the high amount of yeast organisms and sugar that are added to the dough.

Here’s a video from my youtube channel of the whole process:

How to make Sourdough Chai Spice Star Bread

The process of making this sourdough chai spice star bread has the following steps: Starter preparation, Making the dough, Bulk fermentation, Shaping, Proofing, Baking, Cooling, Topping (optional). Winter is the perfect time for this star bread with its warm spices, but it’s delicious year round.

Starter Preparation for Sourdough Chai Spice Star Bread

You will need a healthy, established sourdough starter for making this recipe. If you need to buy one or make one, here are my resources to get started!

With your sourdough starter, you can use active sourdough starter or sourdough starter discard, add one tablespoon to a container that is at least 1-quart in size. Then feed it with water and all-purpose flour. You can use bread flour instead, I use all-purpose flour because it is less expensive for this step.

Let the starter sit at room temperature for 8 to 14 hours until it is doubled in volume, full of large bubbles, and smells fragrant like ripe fruit.

The time range will depend on the room temperature in your kitchen, starting temperature of ingredients, and weather.

Learn more about sourdough starters in these posts:

Making the Dough for Sourdough Chai Spice Star Bread

Provided that your starter is active and ready, the first step to prepare the dough is scalding the milk. This neutralizes proteins in the milk that can conflict with good fermentation. In my side by side tests, I’ve seen this make an important difference.

Add more whole milk than the recipe calls for to allow for evaporation. Heat the milk over medium to medium-high heat until it is steaming and proteins begin to stick to the pot. Temperature will be 130 to 140 degrees F. Don’t let it foam.

Transfer 190g of your scalded milk to the bowl of a stand mixer, large bowl, or a separate glass carafe to cool down to 100-115 degrees F.

While it’s cooling, use a separate large bowl to mix together the bread flour and salt. Set aside the separated egg yolk.

Once your milk is cooled and in the bowl of a stand mixer or large mixing bowl, add the sugar, 200g of the active sourdough starter, and flour mixture. Stir with a dough hook attachment or with a large spoon if you are mixing by hand for 1 to 2 minutes until ingredients are beginning to combine and it looks like a shaggy dough mixture. Add the egg yolk and continue mixing and kneading the dough until it becomes completely combined and soft.

When using a stand mixer, use low speed (I recommend the lowest 2 speeds) to knead your dough. It will take 5 to 8 minutes to get combined and soft until it pulls away cleanly from the sides of the bowl. Kneading by hand will take 8 to 12 minutes.

Now, it is time to knead in the softened unsalted butter. Continue kneading until the butter is completely incorporated into your dough and it pulls away cleanly from the sides of the bowl or kneading surface and is a soft smooth ball.

Bulk Fermentation for Sourdough Chai Spice Star Bread

Place your star bread’s soft sweet dough into an airtight container or use a large clean bowl covered with plastic wrap. I like to use a 4-qt Cambro container like this one for bulk fermentation because it is easy to use and see the dough rise and gauge when the dough has doubled in volume.

Keep your dough at room temperature for 4 to 7 hours until it doubles. For clarity on when this stage is done, see this post.

Shaping Sourdough Chai Spice Star Bread

Chai Spice Filling

The first step of shaping is preparing the chai spice filling. Stir together the ground cinnamon, ground ginger, clove, cardamom, and pinch of black pepper to make the fragrant chai spice.

Beat the softened stick of unsalted butter with the white cane sugar until creamy. Add the chai spice mixture. I use a paddle attachment in the stand mixer for this, a hand mixer with beaters would work well too. Scrape the sides of the bowl and the paddle attachment(s) with a spatula and set aside.

Divide the dough

Take the dough to a large work surface and cut dough into four equal pieces. If you’d like to scale them, they’ll weigh 205-208g each. Tighten each piece into a ball and set to side.

Put a large sheet of parchment paper next to your work area.

Roll out the dough

Lightly flour the work area then take the first piece of dough and use a rolling pin to roll the dough into a large even circle that is about 12 inches across. Pick up the rolled dough and carefully transfer onto the parchment paper. Use 50g (place whole bowl on a scale, tare scale, then watch the negative number to see how much you’ve used) of the chai spice sugar filling to spread over the circle evenly, leave about 1-inch at the edge of the circle uncovered.

Note: I’m using a French Rolling Pin from USA based company Earlywood Designs. It is my favorite one and does a great job on rolling the edges of dough. You can check it out in several colors here: French rolling pin

Roll out the second piece of dough on the lightly floured work surface into the same size 12-inch circle and place on top of the first circle of dough and filling, make the edges of the circles meet together as best you can. Top with 50 more grams of chai spice filling, leaving edges uncovered.

Roll out the third piece of dough. Put on top of the other two pieces and top with same 50g amount of the chai spice filling. *Note: unlike my other star bread recipes, I reserved the last small portion of filling for the very top. Usually the very top layer is not covered with filling.

Roll out the final piece of dough into the 12-inch circle and place on top. Spread the rest of the chai spice filling evenly in a thin layer on top of the dough. This extra topping, creates a beautiful look of sparkly cinnamon sugar and spices in the final bread.

Cut the dough into sections and twist

Use a small biscuit cutter (2 1/4-inch or similar size) or circle cutter on the top center of the layers of dough. Use a large sharp knife to cut the dough into 16 equal sections from the circle cutter out like rays, leaving the center of the circle under the biscuit cutter intact.

Start by cutting from the center biscuit cutter out in 4 equal sections so the quarters are evenly divided like a compass. Then cut each fourth into equal pieces by cutting in half from the biscuit cutter to the outside edge of the dough. Cut each of these halves into halves again. This creates the 1/16 sections needed. Repeat with the other fourths of dough until there are 16 equally sized sections of dough radiating around the center.

Take two sections, one in each hand, and rotate outward 2-3 times then pinch the ends together into a point. Repeat with the next two and so on until all the sections have been twisted two by two to create the star shape.

Remove biscuit cutter and cover shaped star bread with plastic wrap to proof.

Proofing Sourdough Chai Spice Star Bread

This dough needs to proof for 1.5 to 4 hours at room temperature to double in volume. Because the time range in sourdough is very dependent on room temperature, it may be helpful to read this post on when your dough is finished proofing to learn the signs.

If you need to delay your dough so it’s not ready to bake at 9pm or if you want it at breakfast time, let your dough proof until it is doubled then transfer to the fridge overnight. 1 hour before you plan to bake, bring your star bread out to come back to room temperature.

Baking Sourdough Chai Spice Star Bread

Preheat your oven to 365 degrees F. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes until golden brown all over.

Cooling Sourdough Chai Spice Star Bread

Move baked bread to wire rack to cool for 10 to 15 minutes.

Topping Sourdough Chai Spice Star Bread

While bread is cooling, an optional extra step is making a sweet glaze with powdered sugar, vanilla extract, and milk. Whisk the ingredients in a small bowl until it is a drizzling consistency, when you lift the whisk and move it back and forth over the bowl, it should create lines of icing that are defined then melt into the glaze.

Place the star bread on a serving platter or cutting board. Make sure the bread is cool so the glaze doesn’t melt into it. Then glaze with sweeping back and forth motions with the glaze to create a festive look. Cut into wedges and serve to your excited guests!

How do you plan your bake?

Sourdough bread making, especially recipes like these requires special planning.

For your planning:

8-14 hours for starter preparation
4-7 hours bulk fermentation
1.5-4 hours proofing

Prepare the starter the night before*, then if you make the dough in the morning the next day, you can have Sourdough Chai Spice Star Bread ready by evening! You can also use a premade sourdough time planning worksheets like the ones in my Sourdough Time Planning Workbook & Baking Journal.

However, I know many people like to enjoy treats like this one for breakfast or brunch so here is a timing using a Christmas morning as an example. If you’re making this for another occasion, just replace Christmas with your occasion’s date or name:

December 23rd (Christmas Adam) evening : Prepare the starter and leave at room temp.
Christmas Eve morning: Prepare the dough, cover, and leave at room temp to double in volume.
Christmas Eve afternoon/early evening: Divide and shape the dough, cover with plastic wrap, and leave at room temp to proof for 2-4 hours (a little shorter than the full allotment due to proofing slowly continuing in fridge and the continued proofing the next morning). Then, put the covered bread into the fridge for overnight.
Early Christmas Morning (about 30-60 minutes before oven preheating): Take Sourdough Jam-Filled Star Bread out of the fridge to come to room temperature.
Christmas Morning: Preheat oven and bake the bread, after it cools enough you can top as you’d like!

This bread dough is very forgiving and rises beautifully and more quickly than some sourdough sweet breads.

Review these articles on fermenting and proofing to have a firm grasp of what to look for during these stages.

Here’s a graphic image you can print out or share to use for reference:

7 important things to know when making Sourdough Chai Spice Star Bread

This recipe uses a 100% hydration starter. This style of starter is familiar to most sourdough bakers making it easier to attempt this recipe.
The shaping process isn’t difficult but does take some time. Plan your time accordingly so that you can complete the shaping without stress or too much disruption.
The fresher your spices, the better your chai spice flavor will come through in your sweet bread. Here’s my favorite source for fresh and organic spices: Starwest. When using ground spices like ground ginger and ground cinnamon, those spices degrade in flavor and potency much faster than whole spices so make sure you replace them every 1-2 years.
Dough that has perfectly fermented, should not be sticky after the bulk ferment. Only a very light amount of dusting flour should be needed during shaping.
Sometimes dough that has been refrigerated doesn’t brown as easily during baking, if your bread is at the end of the bake but doesn’t have an evenly golden brown color, turn on convection bake for 1 to 3 minutes.
Toppings for this bread can be adjusted to your preferences. A simple dusting of powdered sugar is a nice touch that will showcase the beautiful shaping and layers. A simple glaze icing with vanilla extract adds more flavor and moisture and looks very festive! My kids love the addition of a vanilla glaze
You can make other star bread variations with different fillings. See the next section for inspiration!

See this short video for an example of star bread shaping:

Star Bread Filling Variations

Here are a few more ideas of how you can use different filling variations to make a sweet or savory bread:

Sourdough Jam-Filled Star Bread
Cinnamon sugar filling–see my Sourdough Cinnamon Twist Wreath Bread for filling recipe
Pesto
Cheese and bacon or cheese and herbs. Vary the cheese and herbs for more variation! Combine cheddar and chives for a sharp savory treat or Italian cheese and rosemary for a complex mellow savory flavor.
Chocolate filling made with 100g softened butter, 2-3 T. cocoa powder, 50g sugar mixed into a thick, spreadable filling.

More Christmas Sourdough Recipes:

Share your bake with me

If you’re getting ready for Christmas, New Year, or other holiday and want to bake alongside your sourdough besties, use the share button to make sure they have this recipe.

After you try it, send me a note, leave a review comment, or tag me on facebook or instagram @livingbreadbaker

I enjoy seeing how you share this bread for the holiday with your family and friends. I’m glad I can be a part of your special holiday in some small way.

Beauty and variability of flavor in Sourdough Star Bread

I love the way star bread looks. It is so beautiful and the shaping process is so satisfying as this shape comes together. It is also delicious!

As mentioned above, there are so many variations you can create for your specific tastes and preferences!

I made a few versions in my books, Everyday Bread Baking and Celebrate with Bread Baking. This Sourdough Chai Spice Star Bread was first featured in Everyday Bread Baking, but the bread dough is slightly different than the one featured in the book.

Just getting started with sourdough?

A competent guide transforms sourdough baking from overwhelming to uncomplicated and fun!

Get My Free Quick Start Sourdough Guide: Learn the key terms and concepts in sourdough baking, including the differences between active sourdough starter and sourdough discard, and how to care for your starter.

Time Planning Help for Sourdough Baking

The #1 need for sourdough bakers is help with time planning, so I created a resource for you.

Sourdough Time Planning Workbook: Perfect for new or experienced bakers, this workbook includes 8 templates ready to fill in and a baking journal. The templates cover 4 different ways to make classic sourdough country breads, 3 time planning worksheets for enriched sourdough bread depending on serving time target, and a blank template. The baking journal goes over baker’s percentages and how to take notes on your sourdough bakes.

Get a free sample of the workbook: Use this sourdough time planning worksheet sample to simplify your baking.

Living Bread Baker posts mentioned

When is sourdough bulk fermentation finished?

When is sourdough finished proofing?

What is a sourdough starter?

Christmas sourdough bread recipes

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4-qt Cambro container

Earlywood Designs French rolling pin

Set of biscuit cutters

Ground ginger root, organic

Ground cinnamon, organic (Vietnamese with higher oil content for more intense flavor)

Ground cardamom pods, organic

Organic ground cloves

Food scale

Parchment baking sheets

Flat baking sheet

FREE Sourdough Quick Start Guide

Sourdough Time Planning Workbook

My Intro. to Sourdough online course

My sourdough starter

Breadtopia live starter

Cultures for Health starter

Sourdough Time Planning Workbook & Baking Journal

Organic Black Pepper

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Print Recipe

Sourdough Chai Spice Star Bread

Author: Jenny Prior

Ingredients

For the starter:

15 g sourdough starter
100 g water
100 g all-purpose flour

For the dough:

190 g warm milk
15 g white cane sugar or honey
200 g active prepared starter
380 g Bread flour all-purpose is okay
6 g salt
1 egg yolk
28 g Unsalted Butter softened

Chai spice mix:

4 g ground cinnamon
4 g ground ginger
2 g ground cloves
2 g ground cardamom
pinch of black pepper optional

For the filling:

Prepared chai spice mix
113 g unsalted butter softened (1 whole 1/2-cup stick)
60 g white cane sugar

For the vanilla glaze:

65 g powdered cane sugar
1/4 t. vanilla extract
1-3 t. whole milk

Instructions

Starter Preparation for Sourdough Chai Spice Star Bread: With your sourdough starter, you can use active sourdough starter or sourdough starter discard, add one tablespoon to a container that is at least 1-quart in size. Then feed it with water and all-purpose flour. Let the starter sit at room temperature for 8 to 14 hours until it is doubled in volume, full of large bubbles, and smells fragrant like ripe fruit. See this post to learn more about what an active sourdough starter looks like. The time range will depend on the room temperature in your kitchen, starting temperature of ingredients, and weather.
Provided that your starter is active and ready, the first step to prepare the dough is scalding the milk. This neutralizes proteins in the milk that can conflict with good fermentation. In my side by side tests, I've seen this make an important difference. Add more whole milk than the recipe calls for to allow for evaporation. Heat the milk over medium to medium-high heat until it is steaming and proteins begin to stick to the pot. Temperature will be 130 to 140 degrees F. Don't let it foam. Transfer 190g of your scalded milk to the bowl of a stand mixer, large bowl, or a separate glass carafe to cool down to 100-115 degrees F.
While milk is cooling, use a separate large bowl to mix together the bread flour and salt. Set aside the separated egg yolk.
Once your milk is cooled and in the bowl of a stand mixer or large mixing bowl, add the sugar, 200g of the active sourdough starter, and flour mixture. Stir with a dough hook attachment or with a large spoon if you are mixing by hand for 1 to 2 minutes until ingredients are beginning to combine and it looks like a shaggy dough mixture. Add the egg yolk and continue mixing and kneading the dough until it becomes completely combined and soft. When using a stand mixer, use low speed (I recommend the lowest 2 speeds) to knead your dough. It will take 5 to 8 minutes to get combined and soft until it pulls away cleanly from the sides of the bowl. Kneading by hand will take 8 to 12 minutes.
Now, it is time to knead in the softened unsalted butter. Continue kneading until the butter is completely incorporated into your dough and it pulls away cleanly from the sides of the bowl or kneading surface and is a soft smooth ball.
Place your star bread's soft sweet dough into an airtight container or use a large clean bowl covered with plastic wrap. Keep your dough at room temperature for 4 to 7 hours until it doubles. For clarity on when this stage is done, see this post.