This homemade monkey bread is a classic pull-apart bread! It’s made with homemade sweet dough and coated with a healthy dose of cinnamon sugar! The bottom of the bundt pan is filled with a melted butter brown sugar mixture that makes the top pieces of the monkey bread the best part of the whole thing! Looking for a quick 5-ingredient Monkey Bread? I’ve got you covered.
Monkey Bread
Monkey bread is a pretty popular dessert, at least at my house. It’s actually an all-time favorite of mine! But today I’m setting aside the store-bought cans of biscuits today and making homemade monkey bread with a sweet dough that can be whipped up in 15 minutes.
I have to be real with you for one minute… popping those cans of biscuits scares the life out of me! I hold the can as far away from me as possible, shut my eyes nice and tight, and then give it a squeeze on the seam. Please tell me I’m not the only one that hates popping cans of biscuits!!
How to Make Homemade Monkey Bread
Homemade Monkey Bread
Tips for Making Monkey Bread
- If the top pieces of bread start getting too dark while in the oven, loosely cover with a piece of tin foil.
- Only let the monkey bread rest for the maximum of 5 minutes in the bundt pan after baking it. If it goes longer, the brown sugar sticks to the bottom of the bundt pan.
- Use a serving platter/cake plate with a raised outer edge to prevent the brown sugar syrup from pouring all over.
- The monkey bread is even better the second day. The bread becomes soft all over and the flavors really soak into the bread.
Add fruit and nuts for different flavor variations:
- Banana Monkey Bread: add sliced bananas on top of the butter brown sugar mixture before adding the pieces of dough.
- Blueberry Monkey Bread: mix fresh blueberries in when adding the pieces of dough coated with cinnamon sugar
- Raspberry Monkey Bread: mix fresh raspberries in with the pieces of dough coated with cinnamon sugar
- Pecan Monkey Bread: add pecans on top of the butter brown sugar mixture before adding the pieces of dough.
If you love Monkey Bread you are going to love these:
This homemade monkey bread is made with a homemade sweet dough and coated with a healthy dose of cinnamon sugar! The bottom of the bundt pan is filled with a melted butter brown sugar mixture that makes the top pieces of the monkey bread the best part of the whole thing!
- 1/2 cup salted butter cubed
- 1 cup brown sugar packed
- 3/4 cup warm water. 110°
- 1 T. dry yeast
- 1 cup evaporated milk
- 1/2 cup butter cubed
- 1/2 cups + 1 tsp. granulated sugar divided
- 5 1/4 cups bread flour divided
- 1 T. vegetable oil
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 4 tsp. ground cinnamon
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In a small bowl, add in the yeast, warm water, and the 1 teaspoon of sugar. Let it sit for 5 to 10 minutes until foamy.
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In a medium saucepan, add in the butter and milk. Place over medium heat until bubbles form around the edges of the pan and the butter is completely melted.
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Add the yeast mixture and milk mixture into a stand mixer bowl fitted with a dough hook.
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Add the remaining sugar and whisk to combine.
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Add in 5 cups of bread flour and knead until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and forms a smooth ball of dough.
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Drizzle the vegetable oil on top of the dough. Roll the dough in the bowl until it's completely coated with vegetable oil.
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Cover with a tea towel and place into a warm place to rise. I like to set my oven to 200 degrees and sit the bowl in the back center of the stovetop.
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Once the dough has doubled, punch it down.
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Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray your bundt pan with nonstick cooking spray. Set aside and make the topping to go into the bundt pan.
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In a medium saucepan over medium heat, add in the butter and brown sugar. Let the butter melt while stirring occasionally.
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Once the butter is melted, pour the topping into the prepared bundt pan.
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Dust a clean work surface with 1/4 cup of flour.
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Roll the dough out to a 1-inch thickness.
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Cut the dough into 1-inch squares. They don't need to be perfect!
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In a medium bowl, add the sugar and ground cinnamon. Stir to combine.
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Roll the 1-inch squares in the cinnamon and sugar. I usually do about 15 pieces at a time.
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Add the cinnamon and sugar coated dough into the bundt pan.
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Once the dough is all coated and placed into the bundt pan, cover with a tea towel and let rise for 30 minutes.
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Place into the preheated oven and bake for 50 minutes. If the dough gets too brown on top, loosely place a piece of tin foil on top of the dough.
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Remove from the oven and let rest for no longer than 5 minutes.
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Place a platter with a lifted edge on top of the bundt pan and flip it so the platter is sitting on the counter.
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Work the monkey bread out of the pan by first lifting one side of the pan and then the other side.
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Let cool and serve up!
why evaporated milk??
It makes a very creamy sauce over the top once flipped .
Wow this is really so awesome, thank you for sharing your blog
If you don’t have a stand mixer can you use a hand mixer? To make the dough or does it have to be a stand mixer?
You use the stand mixer for the kneeding process. You can do that by hand. Instead of kneeding on flour, I rubbed olive oil on the counter to kneed my dough. Works great and unless you need it, it doesn’t add extra flour.
This is what I do. Once everything is combined, cover and let rest for 10 minutes. Then turn out dough onto work surface and knead. I don’t need to flour/oil surface. I do this for all breads.
I might try it with apple.. Not sure whether to cut it up into chunks or small slices.. .. I do think I’ll spread onto a cookie sheet and pop it into the oven for a few minutes to dry it a bit..Might even sprinkle it with a little cinnamon and brown sugar.I’m sure this Monkey bread will become a family fave
Made this tonight!! Very good but needed more of the butter and brown sugar mixture. I added a can of homemade cajeta(caramel sauce) to top. Will definitely make a again. Thank you for sharing.
It loaking nice your producti weach you produce can you shoo as video with procedure
Thanks for these great recipes. I haven’t tried the Monkey bread but I definitely am going to..I always give my neighbors a baked gift at Christmas, I think this is what I’ll give them this year. By the way I too hate trying to open those store doughs. I know it’s going to give a popping sound and yet I still jump when it happens.
Hate to say this but there is a far easier way. I use frozen roll dough, butterscotch pudding, melted butter and pecans. Assemble and place in a warm place to let rolls rise. Back 350 for 25 minutes..delicious
I made this and it was delicious. Only two tweeks: you forgot to put salt in your recipe; and it took more liquid. Other than that, the dough was easy to mix up and the results were great. I made cinnamon bread from the dough that remained. Thank you.
I had to make it twice Christmas Eve. The first batch did not rise. The second finally did rise but not twice the size. The bread came out tough and not as fluffy as I had expected. What went wrong? The yeast was new and foamed up beautifully. Used all purpose flour, which can be used 1:1. Was really disappointed with the outcome.
This recipe is written for bread flour. 🙂
This is delicious. A couple of suggestions/comments for the recipe:
1) Important to note a 14 oz can of evaporated milk is more than the recipe calls for (Oops!)
2) Where it says, “add the remaining sugar” to the dough, do not add the 1/2 cup intended for the cinnamon mix. (Oops, again!)
Perhaps the author can add a sub header above the sugar and cinnamon? “For Rolling Dough Balls”
Thanks for the wonderful treat!
Ah! I didn’t realize that’s why there was an extra 1/2 cup of sugar. I looked at it and finally was like “oh I’ll just add it” even though it didn’t seem right. I guess my bread will just be extra sweet!
Hi Amanda. The Monkey Bread from your recipe. Out Standing. My Family Loved Your Monkey Bread. I blinked my eyes and it was gone! Yummy. Thank You. Now, I have a request. Would you make a Video making Blonde Brownies? Thank You.
Hi, I am making your recipe right now. I want to know why there isn’t a bit of salt in the yeast dough, jut to bring up the flavor and balance the yeast?
Is it possible to make this with Rhodes Texas yeast roll frozen dough?
Sure! There is a link in the post for a recipe. 🙂
This monkey bread looks delicious 😋
Muito bom
Can you do with can biscuits also, I have a LG can I need to use. Waiting for reply
Look sooo good! I want to make it! But.. Can I use regular milk instead of evaporated milk? If so… How much milk would i need?? Thanks!!
Hi! Love and make many of your recipes. I have had fun making your sourdough starter and made all but the crackers recipe. All were great as well as delicious. Could the starter, fed or unfed, be used here? Thanks, Sallie
Hi, Sallie! I work with iambaker and am happy to help with questions. In theory, you could use sourdough starter, but we have not tested it in this recipe. Have a great day!
I want to make a monkey bread my first time I love monkey bread
I need a simple yeast roll recipe .
Is it possible to assemble this the day before, and back and do topping the following morning.
Hi, Anna! I work with iambaker and am happy to help with questions. You can get the dough ready the day before. After the smooth dough ball is formed, coat it in vegetable oil, cover it with plastic wrap, and place it into the fridge. The next day place it in a warm area and let it rise until doubled. It will take several hours since it needs to first come up to room temperature. I hope this helps, and have a great day!
I made this a day before Christmas Eve and brought it to my mother’s house. Me and her started picking and balling the dough. The sauce was too thick for which a gooier sugar would of been more tacky. The ready dough rose three more inches from inside a 10″ porcelain bundt dish. We removed the extra monkey doughs to make a second serving. The most special part in this recipe is that she added walnuts on the top. When the bundt was flipped the walnuts were crystalized on the plate. Very deserving thank you, and thankful holiday dessert.