Totally running late this week on my updates… but have another one coming soon!

This year for Mother’s Day, my mom told me I wasn’t allowed to bake – after all, I had Chocolates class the night before until 11 pm, and my cousin’s family was coming over the next morning to celebrate around 8 am.  I managed to finagle a little something though – even though it’s not really made from scratch, I got to make the delicious, not-nutritious Monkey Bread 🙂

For those of you who don’t know, Monkey Bread is a pull-apart cinnamon sugar gooey baked good – it’s not really a cake, it’s not a bread… it’s just delicious.  Half the fun of this one is eating it with your fingers and getting to lick all the cinnamon stickiness off your fingers afterwards.

Monkey bread is very simple to make – you buy refrigerated biscuits and quarter them, toss them in cinnamon sugar, put all the pieces in a greased bundt or angel food pan, boil a mixture of brown sugar and margarine, pour it over the pan, and then bake it for a little over a half hour.  It’s a GREAT recipe to serve at brunch, as it provides a sweet treat that is better than just buying a bunch of little pastries to serve.

I did learn a couple of lessons on this recipe though – for one thing, Grands biscuits are 16 oz, not 12 oz.  This makes a HUGE difference, because you need to bake it for about 15-20 minutes longer (which I didn’t realize until the monkey bread was flipped out on a plate).  I think generic biscuit dough might be 12 oz, but someone would have to check me on that.  So if you make this and decide to use Grands, I would only use 2 packages, which then puts you at 32 oz (as opposed to the 36 oz the recipe calls for).  Much better.

Also – nuts make this recipe SO much better.  I have made it before without any, but the nuts in there add a wonderful crunch and complement the cinnamon sugar very nicely.  It also adds some protein (my own deluded logic to attempt to make this somewhat healthy).  This was a big hit with everyone in the family – it disappeared very quickly!  It actually still tasted good the next day, but would’ve been better if we had heated it up a little bit to make it all gooey again 🙂  Recipe I used (with my own modifications included) is below…

Monkey Bread

• 3 containers of 12-oz refrigerated biscuit dough
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 Tbsp cinnamon
• 1 stick of margarine
• 1 cup of packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

1. Prepare a bundt pan or Angel Food pan by spraying with cooking spray or greasing.  Preheat oven to 350.
2. Open biscuit dough and quarter all of the biscuits.  Take sugar and cinnamon, and run through a sifter to mix.  I ran mine through a sifter 3 or 4 times to make sure everything was mixed very well.
3. Toss the biscuit pieces in the cinnamon sugar in a baggie – at most 6-8 biscuit pieces at a time.  Place the coated biscuits in a pan.  If you are adding nuts into the mix, start sprinkling nuts over each layer you create.  If you would like, sprinkle some of the cinnamon sugar mixture over as well, as you will have a lot left over.
4. Once all biscuits are coated and in the pan, put the margarine and brown sugar in a small sauce pan over medium heat and bring to a boil, stirring frequently.
5. Pour brown sugar/margarine mixture over the biscuit dough, trying to evenly cover.
6. Bake for approximately 35 minutes.  If you use 3 packs of Grands biscuits, bake for 45-50 minutes.  Remove from oven and let sit in pan for 10 minutes to cool, then flip out onto a plate and enjoy!