This pull-apart bread is a really good idea. It’s like the sister to cinnamon rolls and monkey bread and those two are my favorite.
I made it into two mini loaves. Mini things make pretty fun gifts. Now I just need polka dotted plastic wrap in my life. It’d be the best packaging for this sort of dude.
This really is best right out of the oven, but I wouldn’t turn it down if it was 4 days old sitting in plastic wrap on my kitchen table. Although, I’d probably reheat it a second to make myself imagine it just came out of the oven lookin’ fly and tasting dreamy.
{Blog Love} I think this bread ends up way prettier when you have skills like my homegirl Cindy. She made a Meyer lemon version of this and hers looks like perfection. The truth is, she’s behind this whole pull-apart bread sensation. She’s a real trend setter. You should probably go check out her blog: Hungry Girl Por Vida.
Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread {makes 1 loaf or 2 mini loaves}
Recipe adapted from Hungry Girl Por Vida + Joy The Baker
Ingredients:
dough –
- 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 envelope rapid rise yeast (I used active dry and it was fine.)
- 1/2 t salt
- 1/3 cup milk
- 4 T unsalted butter
- 1/4 cup water
- 1/2 a vanilla bean, seeds scraped, or 1 t vanilla extract
- 2 eggs, at room temperature
filling –
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 t ground cinnamon
- 1/2 t cardamom
- 4 T butter, melted until browned
Directions:
- In a large bowl, or the bowl of your stand mixer, combine 2 cups flour, sugar, yeast, and salt. Set aside. In a small saucepan heat milk and butter over a low heat until the butter is just melted. Remove from heat, add water, and set aside for a few minutes until mixture is warm, but not hot. Stir in vanilla.
- Pour the milk mixture over the dry ingredients and combine with a rubber spatula. Mixing by hand, add eggs one at a time using your stand mixer with the dough hook or with a wooden spoon and some muscle until it’s incorporated. Add 1/2 cup flour and mix until smooth. Add remaining flour a little bit at a time kneading until smooth and sticky. It’s a sticky dough, but resist adding more flour.
- Place the dough in a large, greased bowl, turning once to coat. Top with plastic wrap and allow to rise until double, about an hour. Deflate the dough. At this point you can either pop it in the fridge overnight or tackle it right now. It works better after chilling. If you do chill it overnight simply place it on the counter for 30 minutes before following the roll-out directions.
- Whisk the sugar, cinnamon, and cardamom together for the filling. Melt the butter until browned on the stovetop and set aside. Grease the bottom of a 9x5x3-inch loaf pan or two mini loaf pans. Line with a rectangle of parchment paper so that it’s popping out on both long sides. Spray again. Set aside.
- On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough to about a 12 inch tall and 20 inch wide rectangle. Use a pastry brush to spread melted butter over all the dough. Sprinkle with the sugar and cinnamon mixture.
- Slice the dough vertically into six equal-sized strips. Stack the strips on top of each other and slice the stack into 6 equal slices once again. You’ll have six stacks of six squares. Layer the dough squares in the loaf pan or mini pans cut side up, like slices of bread and top with a tea towel and set aside to rise for 30-45 minutes or until puffy.
- Preheat the oven to 350º and place the bread on the center rack and bake for 30-35 minutes or until the top is very golden. (I made two mini loaves and still baked it this long.)
- Remove fro the oven an allow to rest for 20 minutes. Run a knife around the edges to loosen the bread and lift out with the parchment paper. Allow to cool slightly before drizzling with glaze. Eat while warm with coffee.
Oranges taste really good with cinnamon sugar.
Orange Glaze
Recipe from my love for citrus
Ingredients:
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- juice from 1/2 an orange (a few tablespoons)
Directions:
- Whisk together a squeeze of orange juice into 3/4 cup of powdered sugar. Whisk until smooth. Add remaining 1/3 cup of powdered sugar and add enough orange juice to thin it out to a nice glaze. Drizzle over cinnamon sugar pull-apart bread.
Elliot is a prance-y walker. I’d prance for pull-apart bread.
thanks for the shout out girl! i love the orange spice thing you have going on here…and mini loaves, love! what kind of dog is Elliot?
Anytime! <3 Thanks for the spice love.
Elliot is maybe a Chihuahua / Terrier mix. Or maybe a Min Pin / Terrier mix. He's mostly a rare breed of awesome. 🙂
A good compromise for polka dot plastic wrap would be florist’s cellophane. For cookies and cupcakes to give as presents that I want a clear wrap for, but also a little decoration (I’m a big fan of the polka dots) I always keep a metre of florists clear wrap in. In the uk (I presume it’s the same for you?!) you can walk into any flower shop and just buy a metre length of their patterned wrap for less than £1. It’s obviously not Saran wrap, but it does a fairly good job of keeping stuff fresh before it’s gifted and even better looks super cute!
OOh! Thanks for the tip! I’m going to totally do this. Thanks!