monkey bread

I had never heard of Monkey Bread until I was in university. At a friend's wedding shower, I tried and fell in love with it. It's a very simple sweet bread, perfectly designed so you can pull off perfectly sized pieces to eat. This recipe uses the bread machine. I set it last night to be done the dough cycle first thing this morning, so by 8:30 we had a fresh bready treat to eat. Here's the recipe:

Monkey Bread

1/2 cup milk
2 tbsp water
1 large egg
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp butter
2 1/4 cups flour
4 tsp sugar
1 1/2 tsp bread machine yeast (instant rise)
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 tbsp melted butter

Add milk, water, egg, salt, butter, flour, yeast and 4 tsp sugar to bread machine. Select dough cycle. When cycle is complete, cut into a bunch of little balls. Roll each in melted butter, then brown sugar and cinnamon mixture. Place coated dough in bundt pan. Cover and let rise until doubled, approximately 30 minutes. Bake at 375 for 20-30 minutes. (If you're using a non-ring pan, it may take longer for the middle ones to cook.) Invert onto a plate, and serve warm.

Yeast tip: Rather than buying the $4 113 gram "Bread Machine" jar of yeast from the grocery store, at Yarmouth Natural (and probably most other natural foods or bulk stores) they have "Instant Yeast" which is the same thing, for a lot less. A 125 gram bag costs $1.25. As Phillip would say, "Niiiigh." (Translation: "Nice.")

And here's a little monkey who enjoyed a bite before his nap.