Lemon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread

Over Spring Break, I baked up a Lemon-Scented Pull-Apart Coffee Cake. But it's not actually a cake, at least in my mind. For one, it has yeast in it. You know what else has yeast? Bread. Also, it's baked in a 9x5 loaf pan. You know what else you bake in loaf pans? Exactly. You get the picture...

See that wooden thing? It's actually a pestle. Harhar.

mmm...springy

Piles of dough squares, butter, and lemon zested sugar

sprinkle!

A dough square and his dough friends

All ready for the second rise

So this recipe is actually almost identical to Joy the Baker's Cinnamon Sugar Pull-Apart Bread--the only difference is the filling. This means that you could double the recipe and simply use half for each flavored sugar! But...I didn't think about that until after the fact, so just lemon it is. (Hello, B! I think of you every time I make lemon things).

A funny story: I baked this a couple of weeks ago and brought a slice for my adviser. But it turns out that she doesn't eat refined sugar, and asked if she could re-gift it! Now that's a first. I've never had anyone give away a baked good that I handed specifically to them before. But I wasn't offended in the least. In fact, it had me wondering what my life would be like if I gave up refined sugar forever (not just for Lent)...I also wonder who she gave it to. Hopefully not the trashcan.

But anyways, here's what the lemon sugar pull-apart bread looks like out of the oven:

Hello

I bake it for 55 minutes, not 35 like the recipe says.

There is also a cream cheese glaze that goes with this bread. It has only four ingredients: lemon juice, milk, cream cheese, and powdered sugar. Unfortunately, I made the rookie mistake of mixing the lemon juice and the cream cheese together first. But that caused it to curdle and now no amount of whipping in my stand mixer will cause it to stop looking like cottage cheese. It kind of tastes like it, too. Genius.