Monkey bread is a messy, delicious, wonderful thing.
I’d actually never had monkey bread before, but when I thought about little balls of dough surrounded by cinnamon and butter and sugar, I realized I’d be insane if I didn’t make it.
My little sisters enjoyed it. I told them that if they ate this bread they’d turn into little monkeys. Unfortunately, they didn’t seem to believe me, and the bread was gone in 2 seconds flat.
It probably won’t last long for you either.
Monkey Bread
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
Serves: 1 Loaf
Ingredients
- -Yeast Ingredients-
- 1 cup warm water
- 2 tablespoons yeast
- ¼ cup sugar
- -Dry Ingredients-
- 1 ¾ cup rice flour, plus ½ cup more to be added later
- ¾ cup cornstarch (or a half and half potato/tapioca starch blend), plus ¼ cup more to be added later
- ¼ cup milk powder
- 2 ½ teaspoons xanthan gum
- 1 ¼ teaspoons salt
- -Wet Ingredients-
- 2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 large free range organic eggs
- ⅓ cup warm water
- -Filling-
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons butter
Instructions
- Grease one loaf pan with butter. I have an extra-large loaf pan, and the dough fit in this pan perfectly. However, it did not all fit in the average-sized loaf pan, and I ended up making another mini-loaf. You could also use a round 9 inch springform pan. Preheat the oven to WARM.
- Hand-whisk the yeast ingredients together in a bowl, then place them in the oven to proof. How to proof yeast.
- Mix the dry ingredients together in another small bowl.
- Blend the wet ingredients together in a large bowl with your electric mixer.
- Pour the yeast ingredients, fully proofed, into the wet ingredients and blend until mixed.
- Turn the blender to low and slowly pour the wet ingredients/yeast into the dry ingredients. Blend for one minute. The mixture will appear very thin at first, but it thickens as you blend.
- After one minute, stop blending, and allow the mix to set for one minute. Meanwhile, turn the oven back on to the WARM setting. Blend the mix for another minute, and allow to set for another minute. See the picture below the recipe to see how your mix should look at this point.
- Add the extra ½ cup rice flour and ¼ cup cornstarch to the mix and beat until just blended. You’ll want it to look kind of like the picture below. Note the flour on the edges—It has not been completely blended it. You want it mostly blended, so it is good and thick, but don’t blend any more than you have to. See the second picture below recipe for an example of dough thickness.
- Allow the dough to set in the bowl while you melt the two tablespoons of butter. I use a saucepan to melt it, but you can also use the microwave. While the butter is melting, stir together the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Note: You may need more cinnamon/sugar mixture later on, depending upon how small you make your balls.
- Once the butter is melted, set the butter, sugar/cinnamon mix, greased pan, and bread dough on your work surface. Coat your hands lightly with cornstarch (or tapioca/potato starch) and grab a clump of dough. I made my balls about 2 inches in diameter, but if you’ve got the patience for it, smaller balls would be even better—for example, ¾ inch would be perfect.
- Roll the dough into a ball and dip lightly in the butter. You don’t want to use too much butter on each ball, since, after all, you only have two tablespoons of butter. You could use more butter in your bread if you want, but this will cause the bread to sink (butter ruins the yeast rise). However, I’m of the opinion that the more butter you have, the better the bread.
- Anyway, since you have only a small amount of butter, coat lightly. What I did was dip the ball in, roll it around, and then held it over the mix so that the butter could drip off.
- After the ball is lightly coated in butter, roll it around in the sugar/cinnamon mix until completely coated. Again, see the pictures below the recipe for step-by-step.
- Put the ball in the pan and start on the next ball. Repeat this process until all the dough is used up.
- Note: Don’t pack the dough balls too tightly, or they will stick together. You want them touching, but don’t squeeze them in too tight. See picture for an example of how tightly the balls should be packed.
- After the dough is used up, stick it in the oven on WARM. Allow the oven to remain on WARM for about 15 minutes, then turn the oven off completely and allow the bread to rise another 30 minutes (in all it will rise for 45 minutes). You may want to position a cookie sheet below the bread pan, in case some of the dough falls off the edges.
- Once the bread is fully risen, turn the oven to 350 degrees F and cook for 45-55 minutes, until brown on the top and firm to touch.
- Enjoy.
The bread rising in the oven.
So I have been dying to write a review about this bread and here is why:
It’s AMAZING! using the basic recipe I have made different variations of the bread. I folded melted butter, cinnamon, brown sugar and craisins and made cinnamon craisin bread! Which by the way makes great muffins… decreased the sugar and folded in grated cheddar and made cheesy bread! Didn’t add anything at all to the basic dough and made sandwich bread! Seriosuly amazing! Keep those amazing recipes coming 🙂
Hi Ana, I’m so glad to hear that the bread recipe works well for you! I actually use it the same way you do–I just adapt it a little bit for whatever kind of bread I want to make! It even works for pizza crust if you add just a little more flour. Just last week I made one batch of dough, separated it into two parts, and made half into rolls and half into pizza. 🙂
Can the basic bread recipe be made ahead of time and then frozen? I’m trying to figure out how to make these yummy treats without having to work in the kitchen for hours the morning I’d like to serve them. Thx!!
There are three ways you can make this bread ahead of time. You can make the dry ingredients ahead of time and do the rest later (this definitely works best). You can make the bread dough, freeze it, and then thaw it out when you’re ready for use (then you’d follow the rising and cooking instructions in the recipe). Or, you can make the entire bread ahead of time and freeze it in an airtight plastic bag. Your choice!
Hi Linnaea, love your photography, and recipes too, of course!
I will be trying this one, and reposting to my blog. Thank you for a wonderful recipe!
Thank you, Sandi! I hope it turned out well for you. 🙂