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| Garlic Herb Pull Apart Bread |
I'm pretty happy with my basic, white bread dough recipe I've used for years and years. But, that doesn't mean I don't continue to try new recipes here and there to see if there is one I like better or one I think is more suited to a certain baked good.
I was flipping through one of my cookbooks and saw a recipe and photo for a basic "dinner roll" that was just a mound of dough, baked as such and served as is. The recipe was 'improved' in the book by adding Italian seasoning, brushing with an egg white, and folding the dough and slicing it to make more elegant looking dinner rolls. I loosely based my idea for a pull apart bread on this recipe - which you can find in the Taste of Home Christmas 2010
edition as I liked the idea of using eggs in the dough, however I didn't want to make them into rolls, nor did I want to use their idea of an Italian Herb base. Instead, I pictured the buttery, garlicy, delicious pull apart bread our family loves. This recipe made a nice large batch of dough. So much so that I made this folded, garlic, herb bread as well as individual garlic and black pepper flat breads (recipe coming soon!). So use it to make 2 loaves, use it for something else or half the recipe when you are mixing it up.
Elegant Garlic Herb Pull Apart Bread
4 1/2 t - (2 pkg.) active, dry yeast
1/2 c warm water
1 t sugar
1/3 c additional sugar
1 1/4 c warm milk
1/2 c butter, melted
2 eggs
1 t salt
6 c flour (additional 1 cup on stand by)
1-2 T fresh, minced garlic
2 T fresh, chopped parsley or 2 t dried
1 t garlic salt (optional - cut out if you need to cut down on salt)
4 T butter, soft
- In a large mixing bowl, place the yeast and warm water with the 1 teaspoon sugar.
- Stir gently and let set about 1 minute to dissolve.
- Add the milk, melted butter, eggs, salt, 1/3 c sugar and about 3-4 cups flour.
- Stir by hand or use your bread dough hook on the electric mixer and stir to form a soft dough starting with 3 cups flour and adding more to get the dough to form. This should be a total of about 6 cups. Knead by hand on a floured board 6-8 minutes or by mixer with dough hook, about 4-5 minutes.
- In a greased bowl, turn once to cover the dough with oil or grease, cover and let raise until doubled in height. This could be 25 minutes to an hour or more depending on how warm the area you are letting it raise is.
- Punch down dough and place on a floured surface.
- Divide dough into 4 portions. The bread I made above was using just 2 dough portions of the dough and using the other two for something else.
- Roll each portion into a rectangle about 14 inches by 6 inches.
- Spread about 2 tablespoons of the butter over the rectangle and use half your garlic, garlic salt and parsley to sprinkle over the dough.
- Fold the dough up accordion style (back and forth, back and forth) about every 2 inches.
- Cut the folded dough into slices about 1 1/2 inches wide with a very sharp knife.
- Place them standing up in a round, greased pan with the folds showing upwards.
- Continue with your dough to fill a round circle in the pan.
- Cover loosely and let raise in a warm place about 15-20 minutes just until it starts to raise and get puffy. Bake at 375 degrees about 20-25 minutes until the top is golden brown and the bread is done. Let cool about 3 minutes in the pan before turning out to a wire rack. Let cool about 5-10 minutes before serving warm.
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| A nice, tender bread dough |
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| Rolling out to a rectangle shape |
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| Covering with fresh, minced garlic, garlic salt and parsley |
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| Folded accordion style and sliced |
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| Placed in a greased baking pan to form a ring |
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| Let raise |
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| Baked and ready to serve |
