"I can't even deal."
That line pretty much sums up this recipe. I first bookmarked and saved this recipe from
Joy the Baker and could not let it go this past week. Maybe it's because I was on the verge of getting sick and looking at her post and dreaming about this bread provided comfort. Or maybe because I'm a sucker for cinnamon sugar. And bread.
My bread doesn't look as tidy and neat as Joy's loaf, but I'm sure that it tasted just as good. Seriously, I was going ballistic when this came out of the oven. It was warm and gooey and sticky and had lovely little crunchy bites to it.
I did this part the night before: In a small saucepan, melt together 1/3 cup of milk and half a stick of unsalted butter until the butter has melted. Remove from the heat and add 1/4 cup of water and 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract. Let the mixture stand for a minute or two.
In the bowl of your stand mixer, whisk together 2 cups of all-purpose flour, 1/4 cup of granulated sugar, 2 1/4 teaspoons of active dry yeast, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Then, use your dough hook on the stand mixer and pour in the milk mixture with the dry ingredients. Crack 2 large eggs in a small bowl and whisk it together. Add the eggs into the batter and mix until combined. Add an additional 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour and stir until combined.
Place the dough is a large, greased bowl and cover it with plastic wrap and a clean kitchen towel. Set it near a warm spot and let it rest for about an hour. It should double in size. After the dough has doubled in size, refrigerate overnight.
The next morning, let the dough rest on the counter for 30 minutes. In the meantime, whisk together 1 cup of granulated sugar, 2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon, and 1/2 teaspoon of ground nutmeg. Using a small saucepan, melt half a stick of unsalted butter until it is brown. Be careful here, once you see the butter colour change, you can remove it from the heat because it'll keep cooking and you don't want the butter to turn dark brown or burn.
Deflate the dough and knead 1 to 2 tablespoons of flour into it. I found that 1 tablespoon was enough before the dough became too dry. Let the dough rest for 5 minutes, take out your rolling pin and lightly flour your work surface. This was the part I realized that I didn't pack a rolling pin during our move. There were three sitting in the drawer of my parent's house and I had to resort to using a wine bottle. But it worked! Roll the dough as flat as it will go. Use a pastry brush to slather on the brown butter. Then sprinkle the cinnamon/nutmeg sugar on it. The brown butter will melt some of the sugar, but not to worry, keep sprinkling until the sugar doesn't disappear.
Cut the dough into squares, peel them off your work surface and stack them into your greased loaf pan or muffin tin.
Let the dough rest again for half an hour and it will poof up in size.
Look at how poofy the dough is!
Did you notice that in the after photo, the top left corner in the muffin tin is missing a slice? It popped out. Seriously. There was one lone piece of bread in my oven beside the pan. I have no idea how it flew out leaving three behind. If it was trying to escape, it's plan backfired because I ate that piece first.
Bake at 350°F (176°C) for 30 to 35 minutes. Remove from the oven and let the bread cool and rest. Eat immediately. Because you've already did so much work, kick up your feet and enjoy. You don't have to do anything else that day.
If there happen to be leftovers the next day, microwave the loaf for 20-25 seconds to get that fresh out of the oven feeling again. Trust us on that. It will taste better!
