June 29, 2011 matkonation 35 Comments

By: Deanna Linder

In Plato’s book, The Symposium, the Greek playwright, Aristophanes describes the reason why humans say they found their other half when falling in love. He gives a speech about primates who had double bodies, with faces that turned away from one another. To make a long story short, Zeus, punished these primates by splitting them in half, separating the two bodies. According to Aristophanes, ever since then, people are in search of their other half.

Culinary-speaking, there seems to be a similar phenomenon; ingredients, coming from different sources, which seem to innately go together. Cinnamon and sugar is one these pairings.

One morning I arrive to Danya’s studio and her Google reader is open onto one of our favorite blogs, Joy the Baker. There, staring at us, is a picture of cinnamon sugar pull apart bread. You could literally smell the cinnamon and sugar through the screen. There was no doubt that one of us would have to make this for our blog.

Being the more American of the two (Danya was born in the US), this was definitely my type of recipe. I’ve been dabbling in the delightful pair since childhood, when I developed a recipe for French toast (literally just your basic recipe dipped in equal amounts sugar and cinnamon).

Being more a cook than a baker, when I try out baking recipes I like to stick to what’s written for the first try. The recipe Joy gives is enough for one loaf. I made this the night before our photo shoot, and me and my husband had to be tortured while the smell filled up our little house. Not even a little taste of it, or I would ruin it for the shoot.

Needless to say once this was photographed, it was gone.

Cinnamon and Sugar Pull Apart Bread

Adapted from Joy the B aker:

Ingredients for two 9x5x3-inch bread loafs:

For the dough:

5½ cups + 4 tablespoons all-purpose flour

½ cup sugar

4½ teaspoons active dry yeast

1 teaspoon salt

1 stick (4 oz./100 grams) butter

⅔ cup whole milk

½ cup water

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

4 large eggs, at room temperature, beaten

For the Filling:

1 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon fresh ground nutmeg

½ stick (2 oz./50 grams) butter, melted

Preparation: