How to Make Monkey Bread

There is nothing better than the smell of homemade bread in the oven to fill your home with amazing aromas of the goodness of baking something sweet. One of the easiest and most popular sweet breads in my home to make is homemade monkey bread {aka pull apart bread}.

Monkey bread, also called monkey puzzle bread, sticky bread, African coffee cake, golden crown, pinch-me cake, pluck-it cake, bubbleloaf and monkey brains is a sweet, sticky, gooey pastry served in the United States for breakfast.
It is traditionally served hot so that the baked segments can be easily torn away with the fingers and eaten by hand.

To truly enjoy monkey bread you have to eat it with your hands while it’s still hot and gooey. Seriously… this isn’t a dish for the dainty.

Below are the 3 core steps for making monkey bread.

There are a few options on how to make monkey bread as 1) go the homemade monkey bread from scratch route or 2) take a kitchen shortcut and use pre-made ingredients such as biscuits or a biscuit mix. {Check out these variations using canned biscuits on Pillsbury for Monkey Bread.}

At home I will go the homemade route unless it’s going to be a hectic morning then I will shortcut it by using canned biscuits and when camping we will always use a short cut by using biscuits and bake in our Dutch Oven.

Some people will use just a flat baking dish which I personally feels defeats the awesomeness of eating monkey bread because it’s more flat than tall and not as fun to pull apart at the table.

Suggest pans for monkey bread:

Dutch Oven {for camping or backyard fun}
Bundt Pan {my personal preference}
Tube Pan {okay to use when I can’t find my bundt pan}
Muffin Pan {for individual serving but it takes out the fun of pulling apart}

Typically the instructions include you cutting the dough into small pieces and coating them with a spiced coating. When using biscuits, I will slightly roll them out with my hand and then cut the biscuit into quarters with a pizza cutter. Then, once the dough balls are coated you stack the coated balls into your preferred pan and baked into a tower of YUM.

What makes monkey bread so awesome to make is that you can put whatever you want into it and almost every time it will be a winner. Get creative {and you can also do a savory version too!}

You can do cinnamon and apples or how about a chocolate chip one? Looking for a savory version then mix in some rosemary and coat with a garlic mixture. The outcomes are endless!