March Daring Bakers: Yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake

Mandatory blog checking lines:  The March 2011 Daring Baker’s Challenge was hosted by Ria of Ria’s Collection and Jamie of Life’s a Feast. Ria and Jamie challenged The Daring Bakers to bake a yeasted Meringue Coffee Cake.


There's never been a bad Daring Bakers challenge--NEVER--but I'm afraid you guys might get bored if I start off yet another challenge with "this was phenomenal," or "this challenge was so awesome," but the fact is, this challenge was awesome and phenomenal!

And now you're bored, right?

Wake up and smell the coffee caked people!  You're smelling warm, moist, fluffy yeast bread; you're smelling cinnamon  and sugar; you're smelling Sunday morning and flannel sheets, and you're smelling comfort right out of the oven.  Really, it's quite worthwhile to stay awake for.

You're wondering about the meringue, aren't you?  I was, too, when I first read the challenge and began studying the recipe.  Essentially, this is a giant uncut cinnamon roll that uses meringue instead of butter to hold the yummy goodness of cinnamon, sugar, and chocolate into the spiral instead of the more commonly used melted butter. 

How can anything with less butter be better?  Because the meringue all but melts into the bread dough, leaving the goodies suspended in steam, unadulterated and much less heavy than what you're used to in a cinnamon roll.  

Yer just gonna have to trust me on this.

No, wait, yer not gonna have to trust me.  Yer gonna make it yerself and see. 

Right?

Here's the link for the recipe.  The only changes I made were doubling the amount of sugar in the dough (oops!) forgetting the egg wash (oops!) and adding glaze (yummy!).

Other DB'ers made savoury versions, too.  Ham and cheese, pepperoni, and I can't remember what all else.  I drooled a lot this month, watching other creations come to life on the DB forums!  Have fun with this, and let me know how yours turns out!