Who doesn't love getting hands-on with a warm-from-the-oven loaf and tearing off a delicious mouthful? Here are some of our favourites, both sweet and savoury.
Challah monkey bread
"This is a cinnamony, sweet pull-apart bread that we make to use up extra challah dough. Prepare to be swarmed by children and neighbours," says Jessamyn Waldman Rodriguez, of this recipe from The Hot Bread Kitchen Cookbook. There's no butter used here; the challah dough gets richness from eggs, honey and canola oil. Pieces of risen dough are tossed in a mixture of two sugars, cinnamon and nutmeg before baking.
Tear and share chocolate cherry buns
From Hairy Bikers Si King and Dave Myers, these deliciously sticky but light yeasted buns are a glorious example of the joy of pull-apart baking. Tender dough is rolled around a choc-cherry filling, and the baked buns drizzled with a simple icing sugar glze.
Monkey bread from Feast
This recipe by Phoebe Wood comes from the Feast magazine archives. Balls of dough (made rich with milk, egg yolks, butter and sugar) are dipped in melted butter and rolled in a brown sugar and cinnamon mixture then piled into a Bundt pan. Taking the indulgence to another level, a salted pecan caramel sauce is poured over the baked bread. Sticky and sensational!
Pull-apart praline bread
A sweet, cake-ish bread filled with cinnamon, pecans and brown sugar that's easy to tear into portions, this recipe comes from Vanessa Gianfrancesco, who shared it in her TV series Let's Brunch. While it, too, uses a rich yeasted dough, the method is a little different. Gianfrancesco rolls out the dough and covers it with a butter, cinnamon and brown sugar filling, plus a shower of candied crushed pecans. The dough is rolled into a log, and then cut into rounds. Each round is dipped in more of the filling mixture, then the pieces are stacked into a loaf tin. Before baking, a cream and brown sugar topping goes over the bread, then it's baked til golden brown.
Cherry and chocolate babka
The babka and its cousins across a wide swathe of the world take various forms, and one is pretty much a pull-part loaf made with yeasted scrolls. There are endless filling variations, but here's one that's a rich combination of several traditions, with a mixture of fruit, rum and chocolate.
French savoury loaf
Proving the pull-apart is just as glorious in a savoury version is this French loaf recipe from Lyndey Milan, rich with cheese and herbs. A butter and milk enriched yeasted dough is rolled out and covered with butter, cheese, herb, mustard and garlic filling, The sheet is cut into strips, that are then stacked and cut again. The layered pieces are wedged into a tin, creating a loaf that invites you to rip it apart after baking.
Cheese and olive pull-apart loaf
This recipe from Leanne Kitchen looks impressive, but it's easy to do. And you can vary the ingredients - the recipe fills the scrolls with an onion, garlic, cheese, olive and red pepper paste filling, but you could add sliced deli meat, sun-dried tomato, and different herbs.
Fig and fennel pull-apart bread
Can't decide if you want sweet or savoury? This chunky loaf is a savoury creation, but with a toe in the sweet camp too, courtesy of the soft figs in the mix and a touch of brown sugar in the filling. Simon Bajada says of this recipe, from his book Nordic Light, that it's greatly enjoyed with butter and black coffee. We also love his description of how that tangled rustic look is created. "Filling will go everywhere, but you can stuff it back in the right places once you have your basic twisted shape," he says of how the filling of dried figs, fennel seeds, shaved fresh fennel, salt and brown sugar is added to a U-shape of dough and then twisted in on itself.
Vegan Vegemite cheesy scrolls
A lot of pull-apart bread recipes use butter; this one, from Smith & Deli-cious: Food From Our Deli (that happens to be vegan) by Shannon Martinez & Mo Wyse, uses vegan butter and cheese. And the pair say this is a great way for those new to the yeasty dark spread to test out its appeal. "There’s something about adding cheese and dough that puts Vegemite on a whole other playing field. The scroll makes Vegemite approachable and delicious and savoury in a totally different way."
Pull-apart pissaladiere
The pull-apart loaf gets a fun twist in this take on pissaladiere, the traditional Italian flatbread usually topped with caramelised onion, anchovies and olives. Six individual breads are baked together, ready to be torn apart and eaten,
Sticky buns
When you bake a batch of sticky buns nestled all together, you have a delicious pull-apart loaf. Made with a soft, buttery dough, and filled with sweet cinnamon-spiced butter, these are baked in caramel sauce and have more sauce drizzled over the top after they come out of the oven. After cooling, the tray gets drizzled with a simple icing.
Or if you'd like a nutty version, try these deliciously sticky, spicy and nutty cinnamon pecan scrolls, a recipe from Anneka Manning. Divine served warm from the oven!
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