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 this 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 this bread from scratch with a sweet dough that can be whipped up in 15 minutes. For another delicious homemade recipe, be sure to try my Banana Monkey Bread!
Can I Make This Ahead of Time?
Yes! To make the dough a day ahead, start by making the bread dough as instructed in the recipe card. After the smooth dough ball is formed, coat it in vegetable oil, cover with plastic wrap, and place into the fridge. The next day place it in a warm area and let it rise until doubled. It will likely take several hours since it needs to first come up to room temperature.
Tips for Perfect 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 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.
- This bread is even better the second day. The bread becomes soft all over and the flavors really soak into the bread.
Monkey Bread Variations
- Banana: add sliced bananas on top of the butter brown sugar mixture before adding the pieces of dough.
- Blueberry: mix fresh blueberries in when adding the pieces of dough coated with cinnamon sugar
- Raspberry: mix fresh raspberries in with the pieces of dough coated with cinnamon sugar
- Pecan: add pecans on top of the butter brown sugar mixture before adding the pieces of dough.
Homemade Monkey Bread
Ingredients
Bread
- ¾ cup (177 g) warm water, about 110°F
- 1 tablespoon dry yeast
- 1 cup (252 g) evaporated milk
- ½ cup (1 stick / 113 g) salted butter, cubed
- ½ cup + 1 teaspoon granulated sugar, divided
- 5 ¼ cups (667 g) bread flour, divided
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
Topping
- 1 cup (200 g) light brown sugar, packed
- ½ cup (1 stick / 113 g) salted butter, cubed
Cinnamon Sugar
- ½ cup (100 g) granulated sugar
- 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
Instructions
Bread
- In a small bowl, whisk together the yeast, warm water, and the 1 teaspoon of sugar. Let it sit for 5-10 minutes, or until foamy.
- In a medium saucepan over medium heat, add evaporated milk and butter. Heat stirring occasionally until bubbles form around the edges of the pan and the butter is completely melted.
- Add the yeast mixture and the milk mixture into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook.
- Add the remaining sugar and whisk to combine.
- Slowly add in 5 cups of bread flour and knead on low speed until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and forms a smooth ball.
- Drizzle the vegetable oil on top of the dough. Roll the dough in the bowl until it's completely coated with vegetable oil.
- Cover with a clean towel and place in a warm place to rise until doubled.
- Once the dough has doubled, punch it down. Set aside while you prepare the topping mixture.
Topping
- Spray a 10-inch bundt pan with nonstick cooking spray.
- In a medium saucepan over medium heat, add brown sugar and butter. Cook stirring occasionally as the butter melts.
- Once the butter is melted, pour the topping into the prepared bundt pan.
Assembly
- Dust a clean work surface with the remaining 1/4 cup of flour.
- Roll the dough out to 1-inch thickness and cut into 1-inch squares.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the sugar and ground cinnamon.
- Roll the dough squares in the cinnamon and sugar to coat, working in batches as needed.
- Add the coated dough into the bundt pan. Cover with a towel and let rise in a warm place for 30 minutes.
- Nearing the end of the rise time, preheat the oven to 350°F.
- Bake for 50 minutes. If the dough gets too brown on top, loosely place a piece of tin foil over the bundt pan.
- Remove from the oven and let rest for no longer than 5 minutes.
- Place a rimmed platter on top of the bundt pan and flip it so the platter is sitting on the counter. Once flipped over, remove the bundt pan.
- Let cool slightly and serve up!
Video
Did you make this recipe?
Thank you for making my recipe! You took pictures, right? Well go ahead and post them on Instagram! Be sure to mention me @iambaker and use the hashtag #YouAreBaker.
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. 🙂