Lemon Pull Apart Bread

 Lemon is one of my favorite flavors and while I was browsing

Pinterest the other day, I was drooling over

a lemon pull apart bread from The Whimsical Cupcake.

She got it from Leite's Culinaria who titled it a coffee cake.

We had relatives staying with us and so

we decided that now was the perfect time to try out

this new recipe on them.  

The Whimsical Cupcake described how she kept peeling slices

off and "shoveling it into my mouth".  Sounds yummylicious to me!

As I love to read recipes,I read lots of the comments 

and many people were confused so I are going to try and

simplify a few things.

You start with making this wonderful sugar and zest paste.

Alas, we had no orange rind, but that turned out fine.  We

used only lemon rind.

Their instructions said to roll the dough out to a 20x12 rectangle,

top it with butter, cut and then sprinkle.  Well, we just decided to

make things easier so we sprinkled the whole dough then

cut the rectangle into five strips - 4 inches wide and then stacked them.

They stretch a little as you stack, but that's not a problem.

Here are the five strips stacked.  You can barely see the bottom one, but

trust us, it is there.  I trimmed the ends and then cut this stacked strip

into equal pieces.

As you can see, they vary a little in width, but not a problem as

it rises.

Now, finally place those pieces on their sides with a cut side up

filling a greased bread pan.  We knew it would overcrowd the

pan if we put strip number six in, so we saved it and made a

roll out of it. (You will get a peek at that later.)

Oh my, if you love lemon and you love bread, you are going to love

this pull apart loaf.  I am usually not an end person, but this end is so

buttery and crunchy with the sugar, we had to divide it up so

there wasn't any fighting.

One of the readers suggested putting the cream cheese frosting

in a squeeze bottle.  We kept that squeeze bottle handy and

squeezed a little extra frosting on each piece.

Lemon Pull Apart Bread Recipe

(slightly adjusted)

2 3/4 C. flour

1/4 C. sugar

1 envelope yeast (2 1/4 tsp.)

1/2 tsp. salt

1/3 C. milk

1/4 C. butter

1/4 C. cold water

2 eggs (room temperature)

1 1/2 tsp. vanilla

Place the flour, sugar, yeast and salt into the large bowl

of a stand mixer.  

In a microwave safe bowl place the milk and butter and heat

until the butter is melted.  Add the cold water.  Test it to make

sure it is not too hot so you won't kill your yeast.  Pour the

milk mixture into the flour mixture - I poured it on top of the yeast

in the bowl and let it sit for a minute.  Add the two eggs and

vanilla and beat with the bread hook for about 5 minutes.

NOW, ONE OF THE BIGGEST PROBLEMS PEOPLE

HAD WITH THIS RECIPE WAS THE DOUGH WAS SOFT

SO THEY ADDED MORE FLOUR.

DON'T ADD MORE FLOUR. 

 LET THE DOUGH RISE

AND IT WILL NOT BE STICKY AFTER IT HAS RISEN!!!

This is not one of those recipes where the dough will pull

away from the bowl.  It is going to adhere to the bowl,

but I promise you that it will handle really nicely after

you let it rise.

Just remove the dough hook, spray the top of the dough and

leave the dough in the same bowl.  Cover it with plastic wrap and

let rise until double.  This dough took a little longer to double.  It 

should take about an hour.

Meanwhile make the lemon paste.

Lemon Paste

1/2 C. granulated sugar

3 T. lemon zest (from 3 lemons)

1 T. orange zest (I found that to be optional!)

Mix the sugar and zest and set aside.  The sugar will

draw out the moisture from the zest and it will be a

sandy consistency.

Heat oven to 325. (There were lots of complaints

about the bread over browning so I dropped my

temperature 25 degrees from the original 350.)

Punch the dough down and sprinkle a little flour

on the counter.  Roll the dough out to a rectangle

that is 20x12.  This will be about as far as it stretches

so that is easy.  

Top it with 1/4 C. melted butter.  I didn't use all of my butter

or it would have been running off the dough.  Then sprinkle the 

lemon paste on top.  With the long side of the dough facing

you, mark it off into 5 pieces (length wise) and cut with

a pizza dough cutter.  Gently lift and stack them on top of

each other.  They don't have to be perfect.  

Now with a bread knife, mark the dough into 6

pieces and cut.  I trimmed the uneven ends off first.

Spray your bread pan generously with Pam.

Lay the cut pieces, cut side up into the pan.  Do not

squeeze them too tight or when the dough expands

it will push pieces up and  over the top of the loaf.

I found for my size of pan it was going to be one 

section too many, so I placed that in a jumbo

muffin cup and baked it separately.

Bake for 35-40 minutes.  It should be golden but

not too brown.  That's why I switched the temperature

to 325.  Slightly separate one of the middle pieces 

to be sure it is baked all the way through. 

Remove from oven and let rest 10 minutes.  Use

a knife if necessary to loosen from the sides of

the pan.  Let cool.  Top with cream cheese frosting.

Tangy Cream Cheese Frosting

3 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/3 C. powdered sugar

1 T. milk

1 T. fresh lemon juice

Beat until creamy.  You need the cream cheese softened 

or you will get lumps.  You can't have any lumps if you are

going to put it in a squeeze bottle.

Drizzle the frosting on top and serve extra frosting with

each slice, if desired.

Here is my cute little "extra" that we cooked in a jumbo muffin cup.

It was really nice to have this to taste test.

Posting with

Foodie Friday