Monkey bread

Reason for drop was not using a bundt pan, center was a bit gooey, but good!

Okay, I have been craving a recipe for homemade monkey bread for MONTHS. Its also called cinnamon Pull-Aparts. I wanted to make it with Brittany back in Missouri, but unfortunately cooks.com was letting me down. All I could find were the ones that used refrigerated pre-made dough. But now, I have found it! A recipe completely from scratch!

And please note, though I made this at 6 am, (couldn't sleep), it can actually be made the night before and put in the fridge to rise and baked in the morning.

Dough:

1 package (2 1/2 teaspoons) yeast
1/4 cup of warm water
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup melted butter
3/4 cup warm mlik
1 egg
3 cups flour

Dipping:
1/2 cup melted butter
Cinnamon, Nutmeg, and Sugar combined

Start with dissolving the yeast in warm water while you heat the milk and melt the butter. What I did was measure my milk in my larger sized pyrex liquid cup, put the butter in and heated in microwave. Stirred that up and added the salt, sugar and egg and whisked together. I then mixed my yeast with the 1/2 the flour and added my cup of liquids, and mixed in the other flour.

Once it is combined into a ball knead until smooth on a floured board/counter-top.  A good way to see if your  bread is kneaded enough is to do the gluten test, which I promise is coming up in a soon post. For a quick overview without pictures, pinch off a bit of dough about the size of a quarter and rub between your fingers to stretch it. If you can see light through it, its good.

Cut up the dough and roll into balls, dip in the butter, and then dip in the container of sweet cinnamon-nutmeg-sugar.

Place in a bundt pan (or if you start making like me and think you have one only to realize you don't, a glass mixing bowl that is oven safe. Made the center more goey but still good!)

Cover, Let rise until double, or about an hour on counter. Can also be put in fridge to rise over night and bake in the morning, however take it out of the fridge and let it rest on the counter to warm up for at least 45 minutes.

Bake in oven at 350 for 30 minutes. Mine took 45 minutes because I was not using a bundt pan and therefore had a solid center.  Cool in the pan on top of a rack for 10 minutes, and then invert onto a plate. Unless you want to burn your fingers from the ooey gooey goodness, I would wait a few more minutes to eat.

Enjoy!