King cake pull-apart bread

Who doesn’t love a big slice of king cake on Fat Tuesday? Take all of those flavors you love in the cake and turn them into a breakfast pull-apart bread too! Cake for breakfast, sign us up!

This pull-apart bread is filled with a gooey, cinnamon cream cheese filling, so each bite has a sweet, soft and almost doughy taste and texture. To keep the tradition alive, hide a little plastic baby right in the center for good luck!

King cake pull-apart bread recipe

Bread recipe adapted from The Pioneer Woman

Yields 1 loaf

Ingredients: 

• 2 cups milk
• 1/2 cup canola oil
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 4-1/2 cups flour (bread or all-purpose)

For the center: 

• 6 ounces cream cheese
• About 2/3 cup powdered sugar
• 4-5 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• About 2 tablespoons cinnamon

For the topping:

• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons soft butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1-1/2 tablespoons cream
• Yellow, green and purple sprinkles

Directions:

In a large stockpot, heat the milk, white sugar and oil, stirring the mixture to combine. You want the mixture to be hot, but not boiling. Remove from heat and let cool to about 110 degrees F.

Preheat oven to 200 degrees F. Once hot, turn it off. Add the yeast and 4 cups of flour to the milk mixture.

Stir to combine.

Place a lid over the dough and let rise for at least an hour in the warm oven.

Once risen (dough should be doubled in size), add the baking soda, baking powder and last 1/2 cup flour.

Stir with a spoon to combine.

With heavily floured hands, place dough onto a floured surface. Knead about 6 times to make dough smooth and elastic. Using a floured rolling pin, roll it out to about 1/4- to 1/3-inch thickness.

To make the filling, beat the cream cheese, powdered sugar, milk and vanilla. Add additional milk if the glaze is too thick. Spread glaze all over the dough. Sprinkle with cinnamon.

Using a pizza cutter, cut dough into 6 or 7 even length strips.

Then carefully stack the strips on top of each other (they may slip a bit from the glaze). While holding the strips in place, cut them vertically into 6 slices.

Place the stacks sideways into a heavily greased loaf pan.

Cover the bread with greased plastic wrap or foil and let rise again in a warm place until doubled in size, about 45 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Remove the foil or wrap from the bread. Bake bread for about 35-40 minutes, or until top is golden brown and center is cooked (insert a toothpick into the middle to ensure it’s not doughy).

Let cool.

Make the icing by beating the sugar, butter, cream and vanilla together. When loaf is cooled, drizzle glaze all over the top of the bread.

Sprinkle the cake in thirds (with one side purple, one side yellow and the middle green).

More king cake recipes

Lighter king cake recipe
Delicious king cake recipe
Mardi Gras recipes for Fat Tuesday