Pepperoni Pizza Pull-Apart Bread - The Perfect Game Day Snack

The other day I wrote about our lazy -athon day in front of the TV and the awesome cookies my daughter made and I promised to write about this awesome snack.

Ok, so I've pinned lots of recipes like this on Pinterest over the past few years without following through and trying a single one of them.  When I was trying to come up with some movie-watching snacks that wouldn't require a trip to the store I remembered a delicious, crusty loaf of sourdough bread in my freezer.  A couple of months ago we went on a family trip to Rugby, TN and I brought WAY too much food.  One of the things I ended up bringing back home with me untouched was a yummy loaf of bread that I ended up throwing in a freezer bag and saving for a rainy day.

Well, Saturday was the perfect rainy day to break out that loaf of bread and make some pull-apart bread!

I actually ended up using an electric knife to make nice, precise cuts into the bread when I scored it.  I cut down to about a 1/2" from the bottom of the loaf.  Once the entire loaf was scored, I handed my daughter a bag of shredded mozzarella, some pepperoni, and let her go to work.

You really can't get any easier than this recipe- just shove as much cheese and pepperoni into the cuts in the loaf as possible, drizzle with seasoned garlic butter, sprinkle with shredded parmesan cheese, and bake.

Super simple- I realized too late that I didn't have the foil the recipe called for and I didn't have any issues baking for the full 25 minutes uncovered.

I served it with homemade marinara with ground Italian Sausage and it was a huge hit!

I found the recipe on Baking with Blondie, Mandy has soooo many recipes that look fantastic, you should definitely check her out!

Pepperoni Pizza Pull-Apart Bread

From Baking with Blondie

1 round loaf of sourdough bread

2 C Shredded mozzarella Cheese

1 package mini-pepperoni

3 T butter, melted

1/2 t garlic powder

1/2 t dried oregano 

3 T shredded Parmesan Cheese 

Pizza/Marinara sauce for dipping

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  With a sharp bread knife (I used an electric knife to cut through all of that good crustiness!), cut slits about one inch apart horizontally, then vertically, into the bread almost to the bottom of the loaf - careful not to cut too deep (you still want the pieces to be attached to each other).

2. Move loaf of bread to an aluminum foil covered cookie sheet.  Stuff (and yes, you can fit a ton in there) pepperoni and mozzarella cheese in each of the slits. 

3. Combine butter, oregano and garlic powder in a small cup. With a pastry brush, brush the seasoned butter over the entire loaf.   Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. 

4. Cover with another piece of aluminum foil, bake for 15 minutes.  Unwrap bread, bake another 10 minutes until slightly golden.  Serve with warm marinara/pizza sauce.