Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread

Over the Thanksgiving Holiday, I just had to take the opportunity to use my parent’s Kitchen Aide stand mixer. Plus, I had never made bread before, so it was the perfect opportunity.

This delicious cinnamon sugar pull apart bread is a pretty basic bread recipe and the pull apart idea is very similiar to monkey bread. Monkey bread is made in a bundt cake pan by rolling the dough into balls whereas pull apart bread… well you get the point.

Lesson Learned this time: You can never have enough butter and sugar. When in doubt, use more. Especially when it comes to this yeast-y dough-y bundle of yumminess.

This recipe makes 2 loaves of bread, again cooking for the family so I made lots. You can half this…but it’s so good you might regret that later.

4 eggs

2 packs of Active Dry Yeast

5 1/2 cups of flour

2/3 cup whole milk

4oz butter for dough ( at least 6-8oz more for later)

1/2 cup sugar for the dough (extra for later!)

1/2 cup water

1 teaspoon salt

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 teaspoons nutmeg

lots of ground cinnamon

Beat eggs and set aside.

Melt 4oz of butter with 2/3 cup whole milk.

Melted butter and milk. Add vanilla now and set aside.

In mixing bowl, combine flour, salt, sugar and yeast. NOTE: you can mix this by hand but it might take a while…

Add butter and milk mixture. Then turn onto level 2 mixing using the hook attachment.

Then add beaten eggs.

Keep mixing until the dough is sticky and forms this ball.

Knead the dough on a floured surface.

Roll the dough into a ball and place in a well greased bowl.

Give the dough ball a couple of good punches to beat it down.

Cover the bowl with Saran wrap then wrap a kitchen towel over it. Place the bowl in a warm place and let the dough rise for about an hour or until it doubles in size. Baker’s trick: If there is not a sunny window to let the dough sit, preheat your oven and the let the dough rest near it.

Sleep tight baby, Mommy will be back in an hour!

Meanwhile, grease up your bread pans.

When the dough is almost finished rising, it will be time to brown the 6-8oz of butter. To brown butter, place in a pan on medium heat. As the butter melts, begin to froth it, making bubbles. Be careful not to burn the butter, this takes some time, patience my friend.

10-15 minnutes later, browned butter!

Take half of the now risen dough and place on a floured surface. Roll it out with a floured rolling pin.

Roll it out nice and flat.

Now smother the dough with browned butter, then top with plenty of sugar and cinnamon. Just when you think you added enough butter and sugar… add more. I didnt and I regretted it later. Top all of this with a few dashes of nutmeg.

With a pizza slicer, cut the dough into long strips.

Long strips of cinnamon sugar dough.

Then stack the long slices and slice into squares.

Place the slices into the bread pan and top with extra cinnamon and sugar and any extra browned butter you may have.

Now, the hard part… cover the bread again with a kitchen towel and place in a warm place to let rise for an additional 35 minutes or until doubles in size… again. Bread is definitely a labor of love.

Bake the bread for 35-40minutes at 350 degrees. It will be a nice brown color on top, this will ensure the bread is cooked properly all the way through.

Holy yum, it smelled so good!

What a beauty… so proud of this delicious little creation. I’d say my first time making bread (or anything with yeast for that matter) turned out quite well. With my fears of bread making subdued… I think I will try this again soon!!

Adapted from Joy the Baker