Cinnamon-y Sugar Pull-Apart Breakfast Bread (with orange icing)

For dough:

1 ¼ cups of whole wheat flour

1 ½ plus two tbsp of all purpose flour

¼ cup granulated sugar

2 ¼ tsp or 1 envelope active dry yeast

½ tsp salt

4 tbsp unsalted butter

1/3 cup whole milk

¼ cup water

2 large eggs, at room temp.

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

For filling:

1 cup granulated sugar

2 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ground nutmeg

2 tsp light brown sugar

4 tbsp unsalted butter (melted until browned)

Directions:

First off, you are going to whisk together the whole wheat flour, 3/4 cups of the all-purpose
flour, sugar, yeast, and salt in a large mixing bowl and set aside.  Then, whisk together the eggs
in a small bowl and set aside.
In a small saucepan you are going to melt together the milk and butter until the butter has just
completely melted.  Be sure to stir while heating so you don't burn the milk.  Remove from the
heat and add water and vanilla extract and stir.  Let the mixture stand for two minutes or until it
is between 115-125 degrees F.

Pour the milk mixture into the flour mixture and stir with a spatula.  After combined, pour in the
eggs and stir until the eggs are incorporated into the batter.  Just keep on stirring until it is all
well combined.  After it's well mixed, add the remaining 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour and stir
with the spatula until it's well combined (about 2 minutes).

Grease a large bowl well and then place the dough in it to rise.  Cover the bowl with plastic wrap
and a clean kitchen towel.  Place in a warm space and allow to rest/rise until doubled in size - 1
hour. 

While the dough is rising you can mix together the sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, brown sugar
mixture.  Set that aside.  Then, melt 4 tablespoons of butter until browned. Set the butter aside. 
Then grease and flour a regular sized loaf pan (or Baker's Joy it) and set that aside too.

After the dough has finished rising, deflate it and knead 2 tbsp of flour into it.  Cover with a
clean kitchen towl and let it rest for 5 minutes.  On a lightly floured, large work surface, use a
rolling pin to roll out the dough.  Get it as big as you can.  Next, use a pastry brush to spread the
melted butter across all of the dough.  Then sprinkle with all of the sugar/cinnamon mixture. 

Slice the dough vertically into six strips of the same size.  Then, stack the strips all together and
slice that stack into six squares(ish).  You should have 36 square-ish sized pieces of dough, give
or take a few.  Now, take the individual stacks of six and place them into the loaf pan one stack
at a time.  Now, take a kitchen towl and place it over the loaf pan and allow it to rise in a warm
place for 45 minutes until it has almost doubled in size.  After this step, I refrigerated the dough
to be ready to bake the next morning.  But you could also continue from here and bake
immediately after it is finished rising.  Just be sure to set out for an hour or hour and a half before
you are ready to bake it if you decide to refrigerate it.

Place the rack in the center of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.  Then, place the loaf pan
filled with the yummy looking flip-book of dough in the oven and bake for 30-35 minutes, until
the top edges are very golden brown.

Remove from the oven and allow to sit out for about 15 minutes.  At this point you can make the
optional icing.  Mix together the powdered sugar, milk, and orange juice and set aside.  You can
also add 3 oz. of cream cheese at room temp. if you want it to be a much thicker frosting. 

Then, after running a butter knife around the edges, turn the bread onto a plate.  Then, if you
care, you can invert that onto a serving platter or cake plate for it to be right side up.  I piled
about 5 pieces up on a plate.  After piling up the pieces, I just took a spoonful of the icing and
drizzled it on top.