Monkey Bread

About this time last year I was trawling the Internet when I stumbled upon a recipe for Monkey Bread.  Well, where to begin!  I was intrigued ... what on earth could this be?  I felt almost certain it was a recipe containing banana's so I clicked the link hoping to find a new recipe to use up over ripe banana's in an attempt to rid them forever from my fruit bowl.  Guess what?  There wasn't a banana in sight.  Instead what I had chanced upon was a sweet yeasted bread that sounded like nothing but pure fun when it came to the eating stage.  I wrote the recipe down in my note book and it has never seen the light of day since!

Fast forward to a few months ago and what should I happen to stumble on in one of my many explorations in Lakeland?  A Monkey Bread Pan!!!!!!  It was fate!  It was destiny!  It was meant to be!  So I bought the pan and took it home where I have spent pretty much every day since moving it either from inside the oven to the top of the oven to the oven draw and then back to the oven ... you get the idea!  But then this morning I rolled out of bed with no real plans for the day.  Hubby had to work this morning so I had time to kill.  What would I do with myself?  Time to bust out the Monkey Bread Pan from the oven!

You may still be wondering what Monkey Bread is.  Put simply its a pull apart bread that seems to be quite a popular treat across the pond.  It gets its name because you pick at the bread to gain your tasty morsel, in a style not unlike Monkeys grooming each other!!!!  It tastes far more attractive than it sounds - trust me! 

For my first attempt I've followed the recipe that comes with the pan;
Monkey Bread
2 x 7g sachets of dry yeast
240ml lukewarm water
225g butter
175g caster sugar
840g plain flour
1 1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs, beaten
240ml boiling water
Topping
1 tbsp cinnamon
225g brown sugar
225g butter

Dissolve yeast in the lukewarm water in a small bowl.  Mix the butter, sugar and salt in a large bowl.  Add boiling water and mix well.  Add the eggs, then add the yeast mixture.  Add half the flour and mix.  Add the rest of the flour with a spoon and mix well.  Cover and let it rise to double, then knead (I did this bit in my kitchen aide mixer on a medium speed for about 10 mins).

Heat the oven to 180C.  Make the topping by melting the butter then add the cinnamon and sugar.  Form dough into approximately 1 inch balls and layer to cover the bottom of pan using half of the dough mixture.  Pour over half of the topping mix.  Continue to layer 1 inch balls of dough until it is all gone.  Pour the remaining topping over the dough balls. 

Place the pan on a baking sheet to catch any over flow of topping and bake for 35-40 mins.  remove from oven and wait for 5 mins to turn out on a large plate to serve.

Makes one large loaf / cake thingy!

I was determined to make a yeasted recipe without adding more flour to the mix and I was very stubborn in sticking to my pledge.  This resulted in a very wet and sticky dough as evidenced below ...

but I plowed on.  It meant that I couldn't really form the dough into balls, instead I opted for dolloping varying sizes of 'batter blobs' into the pan, not 100% convinced that it was going to work. 

To my surprise though it did work and it made for a very sweet lunch to nibble on while watching the F1 qualifying once Hubby got home ... come on Webber!

Now I'm off to find that notebook with the recipe that started this craze!