Thursday, November 17, 2011

Cinnamon and Sugar Pull-Apart Bread


Growing up, my mom was the kind of person that would make us breakfast almost every morning.
We would either wake up to pancakes, waffles, muffins, coffeecake, fried dough, cinnamon rolls....you get the idea. 

Oh, and she homeschooled us. All 9 of us.

I remember I always HATED the fact she would make us breakfast. I thought it was so 'dorky' and 'homeschooler-ish'. Me and my brothers were always jealous of our friends who got to have cereal for breakfast! Instead, for us, cereal was a thing that we got on our birthday....we were allowed to choose whatever kind we wanted. And we also got to have REAL milk in our cereal on this special occasion! not soymilk!
Whenever I slept over my friends houses, I would always be SO excited to have cereal in the morning... Not that fresh out of the oven, hot, homemade stuff! My friends didn't get it. They would have killed for their moms to get up early and make them fried dough and I couldn't understand why. Wierdos.

I always swore to myself I would NOT be 'that' mom that baked and cooked for her kids all the time, and  I most definitely would NOT homeschool them!

haha.

How things have changed.

Now my kids will be the ones excited to go to their friends houses for preservative filled, artificial, year old cereal.

Sorry, future kids, for all the delicious, fresh baked goods I will make you.


Up until recently though, the thought of baking bread, or anything yeast-y freaked. me. out. 
But it's really soooo easy, especially if you have instant yeast. Go buy some.
And this bread is just to-die-for.... a mix between cinnamon swirl bread, monkey bread, and cinnamon rolls. You just cant go wrong!



                                                                            then finally

So now that you have a play by play how to make this yummyness, you have no excuse!

Cinnamon and Sugar Pull-Apart Bread

For the dough:
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour, plus more as needed
1/4 cup sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
4 Tbsp. unsalted butter
1/3 cup milk
1/4 cup water
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 1/4 tsp. instant yeast


For the Filling:
1 cup sugar
2 tsp.cinnamon
2 tsp. butter
dash of nutmeg

For the glaze:
1 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp.milk- or enough to make it silky and drizzly
1 tsp. vanilla

-In a microwave safe bowl, melt butter in the milk and water until very warm...not hot.
-Dissolve sugar and salt in butter mixture.
-In a large mixing bowl, with mixer on low speed, combine butter mixture with flour. Quickly add eggs and vanilla and yeast.
-Continue mixing on low speed until a cohesive dough forms, adding flour as needed so the dough doesn't stick to the side of the bowl. You've added enough flour when dough is tacky, not sticky.
-Beat on highest setting for 5 minutes. This is VERY important to develop the gluten and get fluffy delicious results.

-Spray a medium size bowl with cooking spray and transfer dough. 
-Let rise for an hour or until dough is doubled in size.

-Flour a large surface, dump dough onto floured surface and roll out into about a 12x20 in. rectangle.
-Pour melted butter and spread, covering all of dough.
-Pour ALL of the cinnamon/sugar/nutmeg mixture over that/.
-Slice dough vertically onto 6 even strips.
-Stack srtrips on top of eachother and cut again into 6 even sections. 
-Stack squares and put in a greased loaf pan.
-Bake 30-35 minutes in an oven preheated at 350.
-Remove from oven and let rest for 20 minutes.
-During this time, drizzle half the glaze on hot bread.
-Run a knife around edges of the bread to loosen and VERY carefully turn loaf out onto a serving plate.
-Drizzle rest of the glaze over loaf.

                                                                    Enjoy! Trust me...you will :)

6 comments:

  1. HAHA!! So I just read this to your "little brothers"...who have cereal about 1/2 the time for breakfast because I have backed off the homemade breakfast "dorky" thing...and your youngest brother is drooling over my shoulder asking,"Why can't you make that for us?"
    Hmmmm....I may have to try it!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sorry...above post is mine, but I didn't notice I was signed in as you ...oops.

    ReplyDelete
  3. It's funny how things work out sometimes... ;)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wonderful pictures! Very nice ;)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Made this yumminess this morning for the boys and it was a hit!! Next time, I want to make it at night, but not bake it...just put it in the fridge right in the loaf pan, covered with plastic. In the morning, I figure I can let it warm up to room temperature while the oven is preheating and then bake as usual! If anyone else tries that method, post and let us know how it went!

    ReplyDelete
  6. i love the story and the bread looks good too. i would eat it if someone made it!

    ReplyDelete