Cinnamon Monkey Bread

Sometimes, you draw inspiration from people around you.  I recently met a couple of lovely ladies, and one of them asked if I had ever made Monkey Bread and done the conversion for TMX.  The truth was, I had no idea what she was talking about, but she seemed really excited about it, and it made me excited too.  She had described little pillows of bread, dripping in Garlic butter………….who would wouldn’t be excited???  So, I started investigating, and the great thing about this “Monkey Bread” was that you could coat the “pillows” of bread in almost anything.   Next time I will do Garlic and Herb

From the research I did online, Monkey Bread seems to be an American thing, and generally the bread pillows are made from their “biscuits” and can be bought in a can……errrr  What???  Bread/biscuits in a can, does not sound appealing, but I found this site with a recipe from scratch – Monkey Bread

So, last weekend, I needed something for an afternoon tea, and figured that I would give the Cinnamon Monkey Bread a  go and did the conversions.  I have made some small changes, but only minor.  It does take time, but OMG!!!!!  It is yummy!  Its like a massive cake tin full of cinnamon doughnut holes dripping in a yummy caramelised sauce.  All I can say is MAKE THIS RECIPE!  mmmm….nomm….nommmm…nom!

Ingredients:

Coating for the Balls 🙂

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

2 teaspons cinnamon

Method:

1. Combine sugar, brown sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and set aside

Bread

440g Plain flour

160g Bakers Flour

1 tsp salt

1 pkt yeast (about 2 1/4 tsp)

250ml very warm milk  (I did this in the microwave)

60mls orange juice

1 tbsp honey

30g melted butter

Method for Bread:

1. Add Flours, salt & yeast to the bowl and mix on Speed 5 for 5 seconds to combine
2. Add very warm milk, honey, melted butter and orange juice and mix again on Speed 5 for 10 seconds until dough comes together
3. Knead the dough for 2 mins on closed lid
4. Place dough onto Thermomat (or bowl if you don’t have one).  Spray with cooking oil or lightly cover with flavourless oil, cover and place in  a warm spot to rise for 45 mins or until doubled in size
5. When the dough has risen, divide into 8 portions and roll each portion into a long snake (1 at a time).  Cut each snake into 8 -10 pieces, and roll each piece into a ball.
6. Roll each ball into the sugar/cinnaom mixture and then pop them into a bundt tin that has been sprayed with cooking spray.
7. Repeat for all of the dough and put the tin aside for another 30 minutes to rise again.
8. Place tin into a 180degree fan forced oven and bake for 25 mins until golden
9. Cool for 5 minutes on a tray, and then turn out

More Sticky sauce

2 Tbsp milk

2 Tbsp melted butter

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 Tbsp castor sugar

Method for Sauce

1. In a small bowl, combine milk, castor sugar butter and vanilla, then pour it over the turned out Monkey Bread

Hints & Tips

• This Monkey Bread is sweet, but such a yummy naughty treat.
• It makes alot, and would also look good in a couple smaller bundt tins
• I used Plain and Bakers flour (cause that is what I had), but you could use wholemeal, or just more plain flour)
• You could be civilised and eat this with a fork ……..but it is sooo good just to use your hands and pull it apart
• The “sticky sauce” is really not sticky, but it does help keep the whole thing moist and yummy
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