Cinnamon Pull-apart Bread

Oh, the joys of browing food blogs--the list of things I've bookmarked to make gets longer and longer every day, with no end in sight. And it's not very often that I actually get around to making things (although I have good intentions!) But sometimes you come across a photo or recipe that is so compelling that you must make it immediately--so it was with the cinnamon pull-apart bread from Joy the Baker. Actually, I first made this weeks ago, but it was so good that I kept craving it (and cursing myself for having given half of it away) and this weekend, I finally gave in.


I always think of yeast breads as being too time-consuming to make, but honestly, that's kind of silly. Most of the time involved is waiting for the dough to rise, so it's not like you have to sit around babysitting it. This dough comes together really quickly, especially if you have a handy implement like the dough whisk! I stirred this up by hand in about 5 minutes.


It's a very wet, sticky dough, which is why it looks so rough here. That's just the way it should be, and I left it to hang out near my radiator for an hour or so while I went on with my normal Saturday morning tasks (and by tasks, I mean knitting my sock).


Here it is after an hour! Nice and puffy. This gets turned out onto a floured surface and then a bit more flour is kneaded in, just until the dough is smooth and loses its stickiness. It's actually a pretty nice dough to work with and didn't resist being rolled out (much). I got too floury to take more pictures, but basically you roll the dough out into a rectangle, cover it in butter, then sugar and cinnamon, and slice into strips which you stack and slice again! (Just go look at link above for the recipe and much better photos!)


The stacks of dough squares get layered into a loaf pan (or multiple loaf pans, depending on size). You'll notice the smaller pan on the right; this one was the experimental loaf, and rather than buttering and sugaring the dough, I spread the layers with my new favorite thing in the entire world:


Biscoff spread aka speculoos spread! Okay--if you haven't had this? You have to go out and buy a jar RIGHT NOW. Think Nutella, except instead of chocolate, this is made out of GROUND SPICE COOKIES. Yeah, that's right--it's a spread made out of COOKIES. It's GENIUS!!


Oh, what the heck--here's another gratuitous shot of my speculoos-spread loaf. I was a little afraid of the spread burning so I wasn't as generous with it as I would have liked. I should have added more! Fortunately I can just apply as I eat...


Here it is baked! The spread baked into a crusty kind of topping, which was good, but wasn't as good as caramelly sugar and butter in the original loaf.


See all those gorgeous layers? As the name implies, after you turn this out of the pan, you eat it simply by pulling off layer after layer. But I highly recommend you invite someone to eat it with, because this can get addictive and before you know it, half the loaf has somehow disappeared....


Now if you'll excuse me, there's some bread calling my name!