Lesson in baking bread

I love making bread from scratch but it takes a lot of time and I hadn't done it in a while.  For a couple years (yes, years) I've had it in my mind that I wanted to come up with a recipe for monkey bread -- you know, the cinnamon bread that you usually make by cutting up refridgerated biscuit dough and rolling it in cinnamon sugar and throwing it in a pan to bake as a loaf.  Well, I wanted *real* bread -- not some nasty refridgerated biscuits.  So Maddie and I pulled out 5 or 6 of my baking cookbooks and scoured them for suitable recipes.

I finally settled on using the basic dinner roll dough from Essentials of Baking.  This is a Williams-Sonoma cookbook and I've had great luck in the past with the recipes I've made from many of their cookbooks, so I was hopeful. 

Maddie read the instructions and I mixed things up.  We left the dough to rise and Maddie checked on it after about 1 1/2 hours -- she was amazed!  I think she is at a good age for an introduction to the magic of yeast! 

Then came the improvisation.  I cut up the dough into about 30ish chunks and I dipped them in melted butter.  Then Maddie rolled them in cinnamon sugar -- maybe 1 tsp cinnamon to 2-3 Tbsp of sugar?  We had to refill the cinnamon sugar bowl a couple times during the process and thing got a little unscientific.  The whole loaf took 1/4 cup of melted butter though -- we didn't run out of that.

As Maddie coated them, she threw them into a bundt pan -- gotta love the classic bundt pan!  And then we left it to rise while the oven pre-heated (about 20 minutes).  Bake at 375 for about 35 minutes and once cool, turn out onto a pretty plate!

It is quite yummy and would actually be suitable as a coffee cake.  (I'm eating some as I drink my coffee right now!)  It's sweet and buttery and I'll definitely make it again.

Comments

[Kelly]

That does look yummy!

[Pete]

I can vouch for its deliciousness. By the way, my mom would be quite pleased to see the platter from her favorite china being being shown off to the whole world! (If she wasn't computer-phobic, that is.)

[Vicki]

Sounds tasty. Although I'm a big fan of the quick and dirty version too. In FACS in middle school we made some in the microwave and I. WAS. HOOKED.

[--Deb]

You know, it's really not fair of you to make me drool into my keyboard like this...

[RC]

What a fun recipe to make with the kids. I'll have to give that a try. :)

[Maryann]

Horray! Those pre-made doughs are so expensive too!

[Tania A]

Wow. I never thought of making monkey bread using read bread dough. Sounds yummy!!

[Janice]

Oh, I can just imagine the smell of freshly baked bread infused with butter and cinnamon sugar. Darn you, that's just cruel! ;-)

[Lizzy B]

Sounds wonderful. Did it do the monkey bread thing after it was baked or did it fuse together?

[Michelle]

Ohhh htat looks sooo yummy!!! I bet it taste great! Love those WS!!

[amy!]

I've got a recipe in one of the cookbooks for my bread machine that I use. It's got both the sweet cinna-sugar version as well as a savory version.

[jessie]

I have ONLY heard of making monkey bread with real bread dough, but it's usually the frozen white bread dough from the supermarket. I actually do have a homemade version, however.

Kids love monkey bread. And yet my daughter is 7 and I'm not sure I've ever made it with her, just her older brothers.

Bad mommy.

[Sil]

Ooh that looks good! I've even made that monkey bread before--don't remember where I got the recipe, but I know it's divine.

If you like that bread, I can send you a great recipe for yeasted waffles. Do die for good.

[Ingrid]

Yowsa that sounds good!!

[The Purloined Letter]

Looks delicious!