Pull Apart Cinnamon Bread

 OMG!  Is this stuff delicious or what?!!

 Cinnamon Pull Apart Bread
The above recipe was the guideline I used for making this.  I had seen a recipe that was similar somewhere in cyberspace but wasn't able to find it the day I was ready to tackle this challenge.  Cool...that helped me find my way to this one. I wasn't able to link to the one from the link above to see how it compares to my version.  I had to change it up a tiny bit.  Joy of Baking says not to decrease the sugar; however, that would have been just a bit too sweet for us...so I decreased it to 2/3 c.  Thinking maybe even 1/2 c next time.  A lot of the sugar fell off when I was stacking the rectangles.  I put it on the top of the loaf to use it, but I really think even a bit less wouldn't have decreased the sweet flavor too much. I did opt for skim milk instead of whole milk.  There's a fine line between cutting a few calories (hey, why not?) and taking away the joy of eating something decadent; but, I think I achieved it with the recipe below.  The tricky part is portion size with this...just that yummy!

Dough:

2 3/4 cups plus a bit more all-purpose flour

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2 1/4 teaspoons (1 envelope) active dry yeast

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 T unsalted butter

1/3 cup skim milk

1/4 cup water

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Filling:

2/3 cup granulated sugar(think I'll go with 1/2 c next time)

2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg

Mix above. 

1-2 T unsalted butter, melted

Combine 2 c flour, sugar, yeast and salt in a mixing bowl.  

Heat milk, butter and water in a pan until butter is just melted.  Let it cool for a couple minutes, add the vanilla and stir into the flour mixture.  I used the mixer and incorporated it with a dough hook. Add 2 eggs and stir.  Add the additional 3/4 c flour and stir until a soft and slightly sticky dough forms.  Place in a greased bowl and let rise for an hour or so.  Mine rose while I drove to the Y, did body pump, chatted with friends, and drove home ie. more than an hour.

Punch down the dough and incorporate a bit more flour into it.  Let rise another 5 or 10 minutes....the time to make the filling.

Roll into a 12' by 20' rectangle and brush with melted butter (that's the butter listed in the filling ingredients) and sprinkle with the filling ingredients.   Slice into 6 long rectangles and stack them.  Then slice the long rectangle into 6 somewhat equal stacks.  Place into a greased loaf pan like the pages of a book.  Joy of Baking has some awesome pictures on this.   It does need to rise again.  I put mine (covered) in the fridge at this point and ran a few errands stopping home to take it out to rise when I had an hour or so of errands left.  Came home and turned the oven to 350 degrees and baked it for 35 minutes or so.  My plan was to have this as a warm treat for Eleanor after school.  She had some in the car on the way to practice, but, since we pass our house on the drive, she ran in for another piece.  When we got home from practice the first thing Paul said was, "that's about the best thing ever".  It's really good.

the dough after rising

rectangle ready for sugar

stacks of sugary dough

sweet goodness

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