Cinnamon Monkey Bread – Messin’ with Perfection

Warm, gooey, cinnamon-y caramel goodness….mmmm.

The first time I really remember having this exact monkey bread was at my Mother-in-Laws.   Only my husband (boyfriend at the time) called it Funky Cake.   I was trying to explain it to my mom, who finally said “Oh, Monkey Bread!”   She had to explain to me why it was called Monkey Bread, picking it apart and eating it with your fingers.  I like the name Monkey Bread much better than Funky Cake.  After all, it is actually bread.  We have burned our mouths more than once trying to dive into it when it’s still too hot.

Regardless of what name you call it, call it delicious.  This can put a smile on the face of anyone in the family, and it is so easy to make.  It takes a little pre planning just because it is made with a yeast dough, so it needs time to rise.  I have seen recipes for it with canned biscuit dough, which I know is good, but not nearly as good once it cools.  This is still soft and puffy after it cools.  For a day or two.  Don’t worry about that, it won’t last that long.  Trust me.  And you can add raisins, and/or apples, nuts (pecans, yes!)  I didn’t add anything here  because I wanted to just show the basic one.  This one was made in a one piece angel food cake pan.  You can make a smaller one in a bundt pan as well, or just a loaf pan.  The hole in the middle give you more of the outside crust though.

Having said all that, there are several ways you can go about this, the easiest being two loaves of frozen bread dough, to make one in an angel food pan this size.  A bundt pan would hold more like one loaf or a loaf and a half.  For this one, I make a large batch of dough in my bread machine, then proceeded with the recipe using my own dough, but frozen bread dough works perfectly fine.  Make sure you use up any leftover sugar and cinnamon, and butter so you get lots of that caramel on there.  And remember, heat will cool if greed will let it…..