Cinnamon Snowflake Bread

Cinnamon Snowflake Bread is the perfect breakfast for Christmas Day. So while sugar plums are dancing in your family’s heads, make this fantastic bread for a memorable start to Christmas Day.

While Susan and I were in Paris, we took a Bread-making class where we learned how to make a chocolate-filled Snowflake Bread. The bread was topped with pearl sugar.

Susan and I thought it would be fun to do a variation using cinnamon and sugar filling instead of chocolate and topping it with cinnamon roll icing instead of pearl sugar. The result was fantastic!

Jump to:

• Here’s What You’ll Need for the Dough
• Making the Dough – Use a Bread Machine 
• Here’s How I Made the Cinnamon Filling
• Building the Cinnamon Snowflake Bread
• Here’s How I Made the Glaze
• Here’s How I Finished Cinnamon Snowflake Bread
• Frequently Asked Questions
• Tips and Tricks
• More Cinnamon-Flavored Bread Where the Bread Machine Does Most of the Work
• Recipe

Here’s What You’ll Need for the Dough

The dough ingredients for the Cinnamon Snowflake Bread included water, egg, salt, butter, sour cream, sugar, bread flour, and yeast.

Making the Dough – Use a Bread Machine 

As I generally do, I use the bread machine to do most of the work. I started by adding all the dough ingredients to the bread pan in the order listed and setting the bread machine to the dough cycle.

When the dough cycle had finished, I removed the dough to a floured surface and divided it into four pieces. Each of the pieces weighed roughly 8 ounces.

Here’s How I Made the Cinnamon Filling

The cinnamon filling included three simple ingredients: Granulated sugar, ground cinnamon, and unsalted butter.

To make the filling, I mixed the sugar and cinnamon. Then, I added the melted butter and mixed everything together.

Building the Cinnamon Snowflake Bread

To build the Cinnamon Snowflake Bread, I started by rolling each of the pieces of dough into roughly a 12-inch circle.

The dough tended to spring back when I rolled it, so I would roll it a little bit, let it rest and then roll it more.

At this point, I didn’t worry about the dough being perfect circles. The reason was that I would trim the dough once everything was put together.

Then, I transferred one of the dough circles to an inverted baking sheet lined with a silicone mat (Photo 1). Finally, I spread the dough circle with ⅓ of the cinnamon/sugar filling (Photo 2).

After that, I placed another one of the dough circles on top (Photo 3) and spread it with half of the remaining cinnamon/sugar mixture (Photo 4).

I repeated this one more time, placing a dough circle on top (Photo 5) and spreading it with the remaining cinnamon/sugar mixture (Photo 6)

I put the final piece of dough on top of the three layers to finish things. Before moving on, I trimmed the dough into a perfect 10-inch circle.

I placed a small bowl in the center of the top dough layer and made four equal cuts starting at about ½-inch from the edge of the bowl (Photo 7). Then, I cut each of the four pieces in half, again starting about ½-inch from the edge of the bowl (Photo 8). Finally, I cut each of the eight wedges in half (Photo 9).

I ended up with a total of sixteen cuts. At this point, I removed the bowl from the top of the dough (Photo 10).

To turn the dough into a snowflake, I carefully picked up two pieces of adjacent dough (Photo 11) and twisted them three times away from each other (Photo 12). Then, I pressed the outer edges of the two pieces together (Photo 13)Finally, . I made sure that the edges were well sealed (Photo 14).

I repeated this with the remaining seven pairs of dough wedges. Voila, Cinnamon Snowflake Bread!

For the finishing touch, I brushed the Cinnamon Snowflake bread with an egg wash.

I popped the cinnamon snowflake bread into a preheated 350°F oven for 23 minutes. After 23 minutes, the bread was golden brown and perfectly cooked.

Here’s How I Made the Glaze

While the bread was cooking, I made the icing, which consisted of confectioners’ sugar, unsalted butter, milk, and vanilla extract.

I added all of the glaze ingredients to a bowl. Then, I beat the mixture on high with my electric mixer until the glaze was smooth and had a perfect consistency.

Here’s How I Finished Cinnamon Snowflake Bread

After I removed the bread from the oven, I carefully transferred it to a wire cooling rack. Then Susan drizzled the icing over the still-hot bread.

All I can say is, OMG, this Cinnamon Snowflake Bread is impressive. It will make the perfect start to Christmas Day for your family. Yum!

For another fantastic star bread, check out my Lemon Curd Star Bread. It’s a winner.

Frequently Asked Questions

Tips and Tricks

• When making any type of bread, including this Cinnamon Snowflake Bread, you should weigh the ingredients. There is a lot of variability in the quantity of flour depending on how it is measured. Do yourself a favor and purchase a scale. They are inexpensive and are indispensable in achieving consistent results.

• When I use my bread machine for making bread, I place it on my kitchen scale and add the ingredients by weight as I proceed through the recipe. First, I’ll add the egg and then enough liquid to achieve a total weight of the egg plus the liquid. The reason is that there is a lot of variability in eggs depending on their size.

• Because the dough tends to be springy, I work on all four pieces sequentially. That is, I roll one piece as far as it will go, then another piece as far as it will go, etc. This makes the process much faster.

• Once the dough is put together, it is not necessary to allow it to rise much. The reason is that it will rise slightly when put in the oven. Too much of a rise will somewhat destroy the appearance of the snowflake. Generally, once I’ve done the egg wash, I turn on my oven. When the oven reaches temperature, I put the bread in.

• When I first started making snowflake bread, I cut the dough too close to the small bowl on top. As a result, the “star” would often be torn. Therefore, as you make the cuts, be sure to leave at least ½-inch between the edge of the bowl and the start of the cut.

• You can do either two twists of the adjacent pieces of dough or three twists. The bread is prettier with three twists.

• One time in making this spectacular bread, I used a bowl with a 4-inch diameter before making the cuts. While it sort of worked, the bread wasn’t nearly as pretty as it is with the 3 ½-inch bowl.

• For a variation, try substituting Nutella or lemon curd for the cinnamon/sugar filling.

More Cinnamon-Flavored Bread Where the Bread Machine Does Most of the Work

If you liked this Cinnamon Snowflake bread, you should check out these other amazing recipes:

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