High Altitude Cinnamon Sugar Pull Apart Bread
Fluffy yeast dough, layered with butter, cinnamon and sugar, is baked in a bread loaf pan for the most delicious cinnamon sugar pull apart bread.
All recipes on Curly Girl Kitchen are developed for high altitude at 5,280 feet. See FAQs for adjusting to higher or lower elevations.
Equipment
- Stand Mixer with Dough Hook (this dough can also be kneaded by hand)
Ingredients
Tangzhong
- 2 tbsp whole milk
- 2 tbsp water
- 1 ½ tbsp bread flour
Dough
- 1/3-1/2 cup whole milk, warmed to between 110-115F
- 1 packet (2 1/4 tsp) good quality instant or rapid rise yeast
- ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 3 cups (14 oz) bread flour, fluffed, spooned and leveled
- 1 tsp coarse Kosher salt (if using table salt, use half the amount)
- ¼ tsp ground cardamom
- 5 tbsp unsalted butter, very soft
- 2 large eggs, room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Filling
- 3 tbsp unsalted butter, melted
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
Instructions
Tangzhong
- In a small saucepan, whisk together the water, milk and flour. Cook over medium heat for several minutes, whisking constantly, until it thickens into a paste.
- Remove from the heat and set aside until needed.
Dough
- Warm the milk to between 110-115F. Stir in the yeast and 1 tsp of the sugar, then let it sit for about 5 minutes, until bubbly.
- In the bowl for your stand mixer, combine the flour with the rest of the sugar, salt, and cardamom. Add the tangzhong, the milk/yeast mixture, the soft butter, eggs, and vanilla extract, then stir into a rough, shaggy dough.
- With the dough hook, knead the dough for 10 minutes on medium low speed. The dough should be soft, smooth and stretchy, pulling away from the sides of the bowl but still sticking a little at the bottom. If kneading the dough by hand on your counter, knead the dough for 15 minutes. If the dough seems too loose, add more flour, a tablespoon at a time. If it seems too stiff, add some warm water, a teaspoon at a time. After kneading, you should be able to easily gather the dough into a ball with your hands.Note: This is a dough that you do not want to be too soft or loose. If you cannot gather it into a ball in your hands, knead in a little more flour.
- Gather the dough into a ball and place it into a greased bowl that's at least twice as big as the dough. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and set it in a warm place to rise until the dough is doubled in size. Depending on the freshness and quality of your yeast, as well as the warmth of the ingredients and environment, this may take 1-2 hours. For me, it took 1 hour with the bowl sitting inside my oven on the "bread proof" setting.
Filling and Shaping
- Butter a 9x4x4 pullman pan (although if your pan isn't non-stick, you should use non-stick baking spray, or line the pan with parchment paper). The high sides of the pullman pan will make a tall loaf of bread, and help to keep the dough from overflowing the ends of the pan as it bakes (as you see happened with my shorter bread loaf pan in the video).
- Generously flour a clean counter top, and turn the dough out onto the counter. Gently deflate the dough by pressing on it with your hands, flour the top of the dough, and roll it out into an oval measuring approximately 12x20 inches. Lightly stretch the corners of the dough to shape it into a rectangle.
- Brush the melted butter over the dough. In a small bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon, then sprinkle the cinnamon sugar evenly over the dough.
- Use a rolling pastry wheel cutter or pizza wheel to cut the dough into 4ths vertically and 7ths horizontally to cut 28 squares.
- Gather the squares of dough into stacks of 4-5 squares. Arrange the stacks of dough in the pan as shown in the photos/video.
- Set the pan in a warm place to let the dough rest until it's puffy and fills the pan, which should take about 45-60 minutes.
Bake
- Preheat the oven to 350 F, and position a rack in the center of the oven.
- Bake the bread until a digital instant read thermometer inserted into the largest part of the bread reads between 190-195F, about 40-50 minutes.
- Gently turn the bread out of the pan onto a cooling rack. Let cool for 10-15 minutes, then enjoy warm or at room temperature.
Video
Notes
Store leftover bread in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days. You can warm up slices by lightly toasting them on a rack in a convection oven.
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