Monkey (Balls) Bread
Before I started making pretzels, THIS is the recipe that I was known for. I make it every year for the family picnic, and it was also served in place of cake at my daughter’s 8th birthday. I will also occasionally surprise the kids and serve this for breakfast. This recipe also serves as a great air freshener. Your house will never smell better after you’ve made this!
This recipe was developed during my last maternity leave, when the Food Network and HGTV kept me company while I camped out on the couch nursing my littlest babe. I looked up the recipes, but it was a bust the first time around. I tweaked the ingredients and the method and it’s foolproof now.
I have no idea why this delicious treat is called Monkey Bread. I’ve done some research and even the google has no clue. My kids, because of course they’re my kids, decided they had a better name for their new favourite recipe: Monkey Balls. So here is how I make Monkey Balls:
INGREDIENTS:
4 Tbsp butter, melted
2 cup milk
¼ cup brown sugar
1 Tbsp vanilla
1 Tbsp instant yeast
5 cups flour (more if needed)
1 tsp salt
For rolling
1 ½ cups sugar
1 Tbsp cinnamon (more if you like)
1 cup butter, melted
DIRECTIONS
1. Butter a large bundt pan or other baking pan. No need to flour the pan, just a nice smear of butter all over.
2. In a medium sized pot, melt the butter. Add in the milk and brown sugar and heat it until just warm to the touch. Add in the yeast and vanilla and let it sit for about 5 minutes until the yeast blooms.
3. In the bowl of your stand mixer, with the hook attachment, stir together the flour and salt. Add in the liquid ingredients from the pot and mix on low until combined. The dough should form a slightly sticky dough and come away from the sides of the bowl. Add more flour as necessary, about a 1/4 cup at a time. I’ve sometimes had to use 6 cups in total.
4. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and a blanket and let it rise for 1 hour, or until doubled in size. If you have a proofing setting on your oven, you can use that too.
5. When the dough has risen, prepare a little assembly line for rolling. Pour the melted butter into a small bowl. Put the sugar and cinnamon into a second bowl and whisk well to combine.
6. Preheat your oven to 350°. Punch down the dough to knock the air out of it and then form and roll small balls in your hand or on the counter. Dip them first in the melted butter and then roll in the cinnamon sugar and layer them into the bundt pan or other baking pan. I usually roll all my balls first, and then start the assembly line. This time I rolled about 30 balls. For larger crowds, I’ll divide the dough into 40 pieces.
7. The original recipe calls for the dough to proof one more time, until the balls come up to the top of the pan. I skip this step ALL the time. I just pop it into a 350° oven for 45 minutes. I do bake this using the convection setting on my oven. If you don’t have convection, you may need to keep it in an extra 15 minutes. You know its done when the top gets a bit of a golden crust. You can also poke it with a toothpick or skewer. If it comes out of the centre of a ball clean, then its done.
8. Take it out of the oven and let it sit in the pan for 5 minutes. You can then flip it out onto your serving dish. This particular one was made for a ladies lunch, hence the paper plate. I never get my good serving plates back! Once I had it on the plate, I covered it again with the bundt pan, and put the whole thing into my cake carrier. It just holds together better in the car, and keeps it warm a little longer. Warm is definitely how you want to eat this!