Gluten Free Pull-Aparts: Garlic & Parmesan or Pizza Pull Aparts

I have a confession to make.  I’m addicted to Pinterest.  I haven’t started a Gluten Free Board – YET! – because I know once I do, it will just all be downhill until then.  I will never have to get off my duff to be creative again.  But you know what? … It is perfect reading and browsing for those of us with insomnia (or who can’t fall asleep at night because… well.. because our brains don’t shut off…).

(For those of you who are uninitiated, Pinterest is a visual version of adding bookmarks to your computer – but they remain online and accessible from wherever you have internet access.)

The truly addicting part for me, however, is NOT that I can bookmark my favorite things to do (a bucket list of crafts is what I’m accruing there) and/or teaching ideas (of which there is plethora of great ones, for those of you who teach) but several of my friends whose boards (bookmarks) I can “follow” (much like twitter or Facebook) are pinning some amazing looking food from bloggers.  And OH MY – the lemon bread?  Yes!  It was easy to convert to gluten free so it started the ball.

Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of “pins” (as they are called) for pull-apart breads.  Exactly like a Monkey Bread (I have an early (2007) gluten free recipe for a monkey bread here).  The difference is mainly that pull-apart breads seem to be savory rather than sweet (although I recently made one to taste like lemonade for the girls – OH MY – do that again soon!).  I knew with my previous monkey bread experience that this was totally do-able, meaning: easy for me to convert to gluten free!

The recipe below we have used for the following flavors of Pull-Apart breads and is truly only limited by your own imagination and taste buds:

Garlic and Parmesan (was a great accompaniment to our pasta: recipe below)
Lemonade (fresh lemon, lemon juice and drizzled with grated candied lemon peel and icing)
Turkey & Cheese stuffed pull Aparts (topped with garlic and parmesan)
Pepperoni Pizza Pull Aparts (stuffed with pepperoni slices and cheese, topped with pizza sauce and more cheese)
Dill and Feta Pull Aparts (added tons of dill and a bit of feta to the dough, topped with garlic and drizzled with butter)
etc….

Pepperoni-Stuffed Pizza Pull Aparts (Kid-Created:  They made the dough, I stuffed, the topped)

You see the drift here:  Basically whatever you want.  I can’t wait to see what you guys will do with this.  Please be sure to come back and inspire me too!  Let me know what you make.  Everyone can use the kitchen-inspiration.  

Gluten Free Garlic & Parmesan Pull Apart Bread

Makes one standard pie-plate of pull apart bread (about 12 balls that are 2 inches in diameter or so).  Download/Print a PDF copy of this recipe here.

Basic Recipe Ingredients:

1 cup warm milk (or water or soy milk or rice milk), between 110*-115*F
1 Tablespoon yeast
1 Tablespoon honey
4 Tablespoons melted butter (for dough) + more (for rolling dough balls in)
1 egg
2 1/4 cups Gluten Free Flour Mix (70% whole grain/30% starch)
2 teaspoons xanthan gum
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt

For Garlic-Parmesan Pull-Aparts Add:

1 1/2 teaspoons granulated garlic
1/2 cup shredded parmesan

Directions:

1. Flip your pie plate upside down onto a piece of parchment paper.  Trace the outer edge.  Cut the parchment to fit your tracing.  Flip your pie plate right side up.  Lightly butter the inside bottom of your pie plate (to help the parchment stay in place).  Press the now circle-shaped parchment into the pie plate.  The edges will wrinkle up a bit, but they will make it so much easier to get the pull apart out of the pan when you are done.
2. Preheat your oven to 375F.
3. Mix together your warm milk (110*-115*F), yeast and honey.  Set aside to proof.
4. In the bowl of your mix, blend your dry ingredients:  GF Flour mix, xanthan gum, baking powder and salt.  If you are making the garlic parmesan version, add the granulated garlic now.
5. Add your wet ingredients:  egg, melted butter and proofing mixture (it should have foamed up by now) of milk/honey/yeast.
6. Mix on low until blended.  Then turn mixer up a little faster (#4 on my KitchenAid is our standard with little people helping) and mix for an additional 2-4 minutes.  This is what your dough will look like.

1. Melt a couple of Tablespoons of butter into a cereal bowl.
2. Divide your dough into 12 balls (about 2-2 1/2 inches in diameter).  Roll each in the melted butter than place into your parchment lined pie dish.  Continue until all the balls are coated and placed into the pan.  Sprinkle with parmesan cheese.
3. Bake at 375 for 20-25 minutes until the crust of the balls are golden brown and the internal temperature registers between 195-204*F.   (See the picture above)
4. Serve warm with an appropriate dipping sauce (if you’d like).  We ate these like garlic bread (the garlic-parmesan, obviously) while our kids liked dipping them into pizza sauce and/or their favorite dipping sauce.

Enjoy!