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November 21, 2011

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Baking

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Monkey Bread

First and foremost, Happy Thanksgiving!  What are you thankful for?  Two years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to say anything.  In the States, we take everything for granted.  I don’t even mean material things either.  As I go through my list of things I’m thankful for (my family, my family away from family, my relationship with God, this blog and the joy it brings me, seeing people’s lives change before my eyes, the lessons I’m learning about relationships) I realize that very few of them are material!  What are you thankful for?  Think hard now!  Don’t tell me something like… my car.  Pshh.  What are you really thankful for that if you didn’t have you would be a different person or seriously altered?

Now, secondly, aren’t traditions lovely?  When I have a family I want to make lots of traditions for my kids. I wanna have pancakes on weekends, birthday donuts, birthday week, cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning, hot chocolate at midnight on Christmas eve, fireworks on Christmas Eve!  There’s something special about having that connection with a particular time of year.  Oh I LOVE traditions.  My parents didn’t do a whole lot of traditions for Thanksgiving or Christmas, which I think is sad.  And the things that we did used to do all the time we don’t do anymore… because my mom is getting more relaxed.  “Come on Mom!  Let’s make some Christmas cookies.”  “No Trev, it’s too much work.”  Pooooo!

In Chad and Amanda’s family it was a tradition to make Monkey Bread for Thanksgiving breakfast.  It’s now my future family tradition as well.

What are some of your holiday or yearly traditions?  I need to know!  My future family depends upon it!

Monkey Bread

Dough
1/2 pound mashed potato (russet)
1 cup warm milk (110F)
1/3 cup warm water (110 F)
2 tbsp melted butter
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 1/4 tsp (or 1 packet) yeast
3 1/4 cups flour
2 tsp salt

Sugar coat
1 cup white sugar
2-3 tsp cinnamon
1 3/4 cup butter

Sauce
2 sticks butter (1 cup)
1/2 cup brown sugar

Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
2 tbsp milk

How this baby is done

Grease a bundt cake pan and set aside.

Melt your butter for the dough in the microwave.  Put in a mixing bowl the warm water (110 F) and dissolve the yeast.  Let sit 5 minutes or until foamy.  If you’re yeast didn’t foam you may have killed it with too hot of water, or your yeast is dead (to learn more about yeast go here).  Then mix in the warm milk, melted butter, mashed potato, and 1/4 cup sugar.  I add potato because it gives it an incredible moist factor!  In a separate bowl whisk together the flour and salt and then slowly mix in the milk mixture into the flour mixture.  If the dough isn’t coming together mix in 2 to 4 tbsp more of flour.  Turn out onto a floured surface and work in a little bit more flour. Form the dough into a ball and put into a greased dish.  Cover and place in a warm area.  I turned on the oven on 400 F for a few minutes and then turned it off and put my dough in there.  Let rise for 50-60 minutes so it’s double in size.

Take your dough out of the greased  bowl and cut into four pieces.  Then cut those pieces into 16 pieces each (you should have 64 pieces).  Melt the 1 3/4 cup butter in a bowl in the microwave.  In a separate bowl mix together the 1 cup sugar and cinnamon so it’s equally distributed.  Then roll the dough pieces into little balls, dip them in the butter and then roll them in the sugar mix you made.  Then, put these into the bundt pan and let rise another 50-60 minutes.  They may rise almost over the pan.

While the dough is rising again, get the sauce ready.  Melt the two sticks of butter and then add the 1/2 cup brown sugar and work that together over medium high heat until they become one.  When the dough is done rising, pour this magic juice evenly over the dough.

Preheat your oven to 350 F.  Then get that bread in there.  Let bake for 30-40 minutes or until nice and brown on top.  Remove from the oven and let cool for 2-3 minutes and then plop that baby on out onto your serving platter.

Whip up real quick that glaze with a whisk.  Just whisk together the milk and powdered sugar til there aren’t any lumps.  I also added a 3/4 tsp of vanilla to this.  That gave it a little extra flavor.  Yumm!  Then drizzle this over your monkey bread.

You’re supposed to serve this warm and gooey.  I’d have to agree that is the best way to serve this.  Good luck!  And don’t forget to let me know what your family traditions are! Aaaand don’t forget to LIKE me on Facebook.  www.facebook.com/thkblog

https://thehandicappedkitchen.wordpress.com/2011/03/14/alive-or-dead-how-to-proof-your-yeast/

106 thoughts on “Monkey Bread”

  2. This sounds amazing and I’m going to try it just as soon as this crazy week is over! My family was really big on pies and other desserts for Thanksgiving. We would eat the turkey and stuff around noon or 1pm, then have dessert for dinner. Pumpkin pie, squash pudding, lemon cream pie, apple crisp, tollhouse cookie pie. We literally made an entire meal of desserts. It made my sweet tooth very, very happy. 😉

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  3. for breakfast? with two 1-hr proof times, what time does one have to wake up to make this deliciousness for brekky?

    it looks soooo yum. maybe i’ll give it a go for dessert.

    side note: i also would like an invite to Laura’s all dessert feast!

    Reply

    • Haha, I guess I didn’t factor in that not everyone likes to get up at 5 in the morning to bake like I do! 🙂 Ooooooooor, instead of making your own dough you could use non-flaky Pillsbury biscuit dough in those tubes. Just cut each piece into four and follow the instructions. That will cut down your prep time 🙂 Or, you could make it all by hand and do dessert. It is soooooo yummy that you just need to make it no matter what time of day it’s for.

      Reply

      • Waking up at or before the crack of dawn is the practice of many very good bakers, so this admission works to your advantage 🙂

        The Pillsbury thingies would do in a pinch, but I think I’ll go for the scratch recipe my first go round. That ooey gooey is caaaaaalling me! So I guess it’s dessert for now 😉

        Happy Thanksgiving and happy baking to you, Trevor! (On a side note, I must have missed it, but why is your site called the handicapped kitchen?)

      • It started out as a joke, actually. I live in Peru and 1.) my kitchen is so small 2.) I don’t have all the correct baking supplies so I have to improvise and 3.) I don’t have all the ingredients one would easily find in the States so I have to find substitutes. I started calling my kitchen handicapped and about a little over a year ago I decided to make a blog and that’s the name I used! I leave here to go back home in 8 months, but I think I’ll hang on to this name forever because it’s such a good memory 🙂

  6. Love your seasonally appropriate header. Considering I just posted an entire tongue-in-cheek rant on my blog about things I’m NOT grateful for (seriously…I know, I suck…), I’m feeling a bit like a scrooge!

    Fun recipe — I’m going out of town for the holiday, but I’m bookmarking this for my return…

    🙂

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  10. Monkey Bread looks wonderful!

    Traditions with my boyfriend: Putting up a Dia de los Muertos altar to honor friends and loved ones who have died, cutting down our Christmas tree, for Advent we have a box with little drawers but instead of having a toy or piece of candy we have started putting little notes about things we’re grateful for and that we love about the other person and memories we love. Each of us trades off so one year I’ll get the even days and the next year he will. We both love opening the drawers and finding the sweet notes. We make each other something for Valentine’s Day – not a card but some kind of small piece of art. Each of us has a little collection on the wall his to me are on my side of the bed, mine to him are on his side. We also have a tradition that isn’t assigned to a holiday: we have several little plastic hearts (originally used as weights on helium balloons) and we tuck them in hidden places for the other person to find. There is a white heart, a pink heart and a red heart and they’ve been in lunch bags, in the soap dish in the shower, mailed, hidden in a shoe, etc. Best wishes in building traditions to share and enjoy with those around you.
    Congrats on being Freshly Pressed!

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  15. Yummy! I love monkey bread. Yes, we are very lucky living in the States. I’m grateful to be able to live here, and I’m thankful to be with my family. Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

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  20. I have actually been thinking about giving this a try! Looks super YUMMMMM…
    As for what I am thankful for? Well, I just returned from a mission trip to a very poverty-stricken area. So, everything. Mostly that it doesn’t matter where you live, how big your house is, if you HAVE a car, or fresh foods to eat, God works through the hearts of all men. So very thankful.

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  23. LOVE monkey bread! I remember, very fondly my Grandma Mast making monkey bread for us for no apparent reason. What am I thankful for? My list goes on for miles, but at the very tippy-top: the fact that God is in control of my life…I can’t handle it all on my own. One of my fondest Thanksgiving tradition memories is of my Grandma Miller. She was so concerned with making everyone happy, she would make both turkey and chicken. 🙂 I miss her! Anywho…I just stumbled upon your blog and I’m rather glad I did. I always need ideas for cooking/baking! Happy Thanksgiving!

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  27. Yum! I am making this. Our Thanksgiving tradition is a little weird. We always have a small dish of pickled herring on the table because my grandfather loved it. He’s been gone nearly 20 years, but the pickled herring remains.

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  32. Congratulations on being Freshly Pressed! This looks delicious.. love your blog and writing as well. My traditions are pretty basic.. lots of family (stray friends are welcome) and lots of eating! I try to be Thankful every day… And now I’m thankful I found your blog:)

    Reply

    • Hey there. Tell me about congratulations. I get home from work and WAM-O! I have 42 emails. I’m extatic that I made it on freshly pressed! What an honor. 🙂 Thank you for coming by and sharing your family traditions.

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  38. Usually we use our cinnamon roll recipe and cut them up to make our monkey bread. But putting potatoes in it… that makes it healthy, right? 🙂

    A minor tradition is that we have pumpkin bread on Thanksgiving. Since good cereals were rare in our house (like lucky charms and captain crunch and all those super sweet ones. We usually had grape nuts and bran flakes.), we’d get a stocking full of a yummy breakfast, complete with our own juice, poptarts, granola bars, ect. It was fun, until I had to stop eating corn syrup. Then… we also have something sweet and yummy on Saturdays typically.

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  39. I’ve made my dad an apple pie for breakfast for Father’s Day every year since I was 14. (You’ll need a daughter for this family tradition.)

    It all came about because of the story “The Devil and Daniel Webster” where the lawyer says, “There’d better be apple pie for breakfast.” After hearing my dad say how good that sounded for the first 14 years of my life, I decided to surprise him.

    Getting a hot apple pie out to my parents these days takes a bit of effort, but Dad still loves to tell people that his daughter made him apple pie for breakfast; so I wouldn’t / couldn’t stop making them.

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  41. Somehow, your question about what are you thankful for made me thinking a lot more than I should! Thankful for a lot of “things”. Monkey bread amongst others. But most importantly for being true to the inner soul.

    Happy Thanksgiving! Congrats on being freshly pressed. Perhaps, it’s a gift to be thankful for too!

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  43. that looks tasty, and I agree, traditions are great. this is my first Thanksgiving in England, where most people don’t celebrate, so I’m missing home and the turkey dinner, 25 people who love each other and gather together. this year I’m hosting my own dinner, with friends from France, Germany, and England, and creating a new “traditional” Thanksgiving menu with my new friends.

    Reply

    • I’m out of the country as well in Peru. This is my second year here for Thanksgiving. It’s shocking that people don’t know what Thanksgiving is… we just have to teach them is all.

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  48. Wow! I want some! I have a funny story to go with Monkey Bread, four years ago on my first Thanksgiving as a married woman I decided to attempt to make the most perfect Thanksgiving dinner for my new hubby that I could…this of course included Monkey Bread. Long story short the Turkey was perfect and we used the Monkey Bread for Frisbee’s and duck food. I blamed it on the balmy weather in south Florida but now, after reading your recipe, I think the culprit must have been the lack of mashed potatoes and dead yeast. Yikes! LOL not to mention it was my first attempt at the traditional feast…now that I feel equipped with a recipe that is sure to work I will certainly give this a second try! Thanks, and happy Thanksgiving!

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  49. When i saw your recipe, i said to my mom
    ” mom, would u make monkey Bread like this ” it’s must be delicious.
    Great Recipe 🙂

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  51. I love monkey bread! We used to have this frequently on Saturdays when I was a kid. And then mom decided to eat more healthily, and the rotation of the recipe went out the window. Oh well. It is nice to see that this dish is still alive and kicking in other households. It looks as good as I remember!

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  54. Thank you!!! I love monkey bread – although for health reasons, I’m not suppose to – but anyway!! I am going to use this recipe and see what I can come up with. I cheat in moderation – that’s how I stay out of really bad trouble.

    Thanks so much!
    Dita

    Reply

  58. I totally hear you-I can’t wait to have my own traditions when I start a family. My mom is getting more relaxed now, too! Now I bake alone, which makes me sad, so I can’t wait to have my kids in the kitchen with me.

    Every year I am thankful for my family and friends, my silly dogs, and that I have a job that allows me to pay the bills and keep food in my belly.

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  61. I’m so glad I stumbled on your site Trevor! I recently have had some Monkey Bread. It was yummy!! I’m so glad you shared this recipe, it’s not at all how I thought it was made. Thanks a bunch 🙂

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  62. This monkey bread sounds soooo amazing! Im definately something I’m going to try, I’m from Canada so our Thanksgiving is over, but I think i’m gonna give this a test go, and perhaos serve it for xmas morning! mmmm…

    When it comes to Traditions I LOVE THEM TOO… Being french Canadian we have a couple wacky traditions in our family, and now that I now have a family of my own it is fun to share these traditions and make new ones too.

    The biggest tradition for us is that Xmas eve is the “big day” i remember being a kid and my mom preping all kinds of wonderful french canadian foods during the day -Tarte au sucre (sugar pie), Tourtiere du lac st-jean (a wild meat & potatoe pie), pate a la viande (ground meat pie), etc… they would put us kids to bed around dinner time and we would “sleep” when we woke up we would go to midnight mass and when we came back santa had been at the house, we opened our presents and enjoyed the wonderful feast. 🙂 Now we usually open a few gifts xmas eve and the rest xmas morning as my husbands tradition is to wake up early xmas morning and open your stocking and the rest of your presents. (we never did stockings in our family either, so its been fun combining traditions) I hope you find traditions you love and can eventually share them with your family 🙂

    Happy thanksgiving 🙂

    Reply

    • What precious sounding traditions! I am in LOVE with French. I speak Spanish fluently, but French is my dream language. Tarte au sucre… mmmm I’ve made that before, it’s so RICH! And those other french dishes sound amazing. French cuisine is definitely something I’d love to get more into 🙂 Thank you for sharing your traditions! 🙂 And happy belated Thanksgiving to you! 🙂

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  63. I love Monkey Bread! My Momma makes it, although her recipe is slightly different. Most people are clueless when I mention it. I think it is awesome that you will be adding this to your family traditions. A quirky tradition for Christmas on my Momma’s side of the family is that we have a wrapping paper fight after opening all of the gifts. It was started by my GRANDFATHER whacking ME smack dab in the noggin. We’ve been doing it ever since and crack up every year (and the pictures we get are sooo funny)! Who knows, it might give you another idea 🙂

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  64. I had something similar to this last weekend and my son (who is 4) refused to try it.
    Until I showed him the name of your post.
    I told him, “look Adam, it’s MONKEY bread”
    we both had a laugh at the name and now he asks for it.
    thanks for that
    cheers
    -Ron

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    • Wow, I’ve never had to talk a kid into eating junk food! Glad I could help. A name like that probably would call attention to any little boy. Thank you for coming by!

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  68. I’m simply thankful to be a part of the world and to be alive, and I guess having a roof over my head is one of those things too. Oh, and I asked my mom to make your monkey bread! It was absolutely delicious and she made enough to feed our entire family brood! Thanks for the recipe!
    Ashley

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  69. The colour of your monkey bread attracted me to open your site but what made me stay was what you wrote. You sound like a beautiful person on the inside and that is the compliment I want to leave you with. Wishing you a happy life.

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  72. It looks like my banana in syrup , Topping wiht coconut milk in Thailand. But anyway I love your picture , it make me feel happy to find something to eat now……..ha…ha…ha.
    I love it.

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  73. Hello! I’ve made monkey bread before but never with a glaze on top – just the toffee sauce, but it looks delicous. I’ve also got a recipe for a cheese version which i’ve not tried yet.
    We don’t have thanksgiving in Scotland – obviously! but I have lots to be thankful for, especially my 3 children! So happy thanksgiving to you!

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  74. Good morning Trevor,
    Congratulations on being Freshly Pressed! In response to what I am thankful for, I actually wrote my last blog entry about just that. It is titled ” Love-takes…on Thanksgiving” at http://somerempress.com/2011/11/22/love-takes-on-thanksgiving/. I am thankful for LOVE!

    This year, my family took a break from tradition, and went out to dine at a lovely place, which was previously a farm, and ate together in a private room, reserved just for us. We still maintained the whole family-style tradition of eating once we got there, but minus the cleanup and preparation this time. It felt good to just relax and be waiting on for a change on our “days off”. There was still time left to make a few visits, and overall, enjoy each other without the hard work. This very well may become our new Thanksgiving tradition!

    I’ve had Monkey Bread once. Talk about something that God made! Divine, homey, delicious!

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  76. I like having hot chocolate on Christmas eve and all that family things tooooo.. But its just that my family is not into it as some other families.. I just wish to sit around with my family and have a relax day in.. 😀 maybe I can do that this year and bake the monkey bread using this recipe… Thanks a bunch 😀

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  79. Your post made me smile during a moment of discouragement. I am thankful for making batches of cookies with my two toddlers on Thanksgiving!

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  83. Every Thanksgiving as a child my family would all get together at my grandmother’s house and we would make monkey bread for the morning after. The past few years we haven’t all been able to go, so this year, I bought some monkey bread… but your recipe looks way better than the loaf I bought at the store. I will definitely try it!

    Reply

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