Pull-Apart Cheesy Onion Bread

I've been seeing these layered, pull apart breads all over Pinterest and I've been waiting for the right time to try one.  Most of the ones I see online are of the breakfast bread variety and they remind me of monkey bread.  Do you remember monkey bread?  It consists of biscuits cut into chunks, rolled in cinnamon sugar and baked in a bundt pan and butter... lots of butter.  It was super popular in the 90's during the peak of my childhood sleepover days.  I distinctly remember the first time I had it, sitting around the dining room table at my girlfriend's house in 5th grade. We were all very tired from staying up all night talking about who the cutest New Kid on the Block was.  Obviously, it was Jonathan.

This bread is nothing like monkey bread, except that you can pull it apart with your fingers.

Food & Wine was way ahead of the pull apart bread trend when they published this recipe in 2009.  I was way ahead of the trend when I ripped it out of the magazine and put it in my recipe binder that many years ago.  Unfortunately, it took me four years to actually make the recipe - but I must have known how popular this would be someday.  I'm super trendy.

The dough is reminiscent of biscuit dough - the dry ingredients are mixed with cold butter until it forms a crumbly mixture, then buttermilk (or in my case milk mixed with vinegar to make buttermilk) is added to bind the whole thing together.  The dough also has poppy seeds in it which I initially thought was going to be weird but I really liked the tiny crunch it gave to the finished product.

The dough gets rolled out and topped with a delicious mixture of onions that are cooked down until they are soft and sweet and mixed with Swiss cheese.

Once the dough is topped with the onion & cheese mixture, it gets sliced into squares and stacked up in a loaf pan - hence creating the pull-apart layers.

The top gets brushed with more butter and once it is baked, the layers fluff up and fill the entire pan. 

CA and I were both really impressed with this recipe.  I made it on the fly looking for something to serve with dinner and just happened to have all these ingredients in the house.  It's a great bread option that's fairly easy to pull together.  The bread is very soft and light, the onions are sweet and the cheese is melty and salty.  The only thing that I think could improve it is bacon.  Putting a few slices of crumbed bacon in the onion mixture would make this bread even more delicious.  Because bacon makes everything more delicious.


Pull-Apart Cheesy Onion Bread
recipe from Food and Wine

Ingredients
1 1/2 sticks Butter, 1 stick cubed and chilled
1 Yellow Onion, finely chopped
1 T Poppy Seeds
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Pepper
1 cup shredded Gruyere Cheese
2 cups All Purpose Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder 
1/2 tsp Baking Soda
1 tsp Salt
1 cup Buttermilk


Instructions
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Spray a loaf pan with non-stick spray.

In a large skillet, melt the 1/2 stick of uncubed butter; pour 2 T of the melted butter into a small bowl and reserve. Add the chopped onion to the skillet and cook over medium heat until softened, about 8 minutes. Stir in the poppy seeds and season with salt and pepper. Scrape the onion mixture onto a plate and refrigerate for 5 minutes, until cooled slightly. Stir in the Gruyere.

Meanwhile, in a food processor, pulse the flour with the baking powder, baking soda and salt. Add the cubed butter and pulse until it is the size of small peas. Add the buttermilk and pulse 5 or 6 times, just until a soft dough forms.

Turn the dough out onto a well-floured work surface and knead 2 or 3 times. Pat or roll the dough into a 2-by-24-inch rectangle. Spread the onion mixture on top. Cut the dough crosswise into 10 pieces. Stack 9 pieces onion side up, then top with the final piece, onion-side down. Carefully lay the stack in the prepared loaf pan and brush with the reserved butter.

Bake for 30 minutes, until it is golden and risen. Let the bread cool for at least 15 minutes before unmolding and serving.

Enjoy!
Julie