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monkey bread muffins
That’s right—monkey bread, individually sized, with caramel sauce. These tasted better than I expected. And honestly, as much as I believe caramel sauce makes everything in the world taste better, this monkey bread was so good, you could actually skip the sauce, and still be filled with perfect joy.
This was a recipe we tried out on Friday. My kids were home sick (I can’t actually remember what was wrong with them), and my daughter had asked me to make bread. Rather than make just one loaf, I doubled the recipe, and went to town making up different kinds.
My daughter was still insisting on plain white bread, so I made that. Then my five-year-old insisted I make a cinnamon swirl bread, so I made one of those, and then I remembered how I was dying to make monkey bread, so I made that, too.
(Have you ever had a problem where you couldn’t stop yawning? I’m having one right now. It’s like—chronic. I. Can’t. Stop.)
Anyway, there’s no real secret to monkey bread. It’s simply a combination of four of the best things on the planet: freshly baked bread, butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon.
I used my basic white bread recipe to make the dough, so it isn’t too fussy: no eggs, no milk. And if you use rapid rise yeast, the dough will be ready in a flash.
monkey bread muffins
1 scant tablespoon instant or rapid rise yeast (1 packet)
3 1/2 cups (350g) unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more, if needed
1 1/4 cups (295mL) warm water (110 degrees)
2 tablespoons oil
2 tablespoons honey
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
a bit more oil for when the dough rises
1 stick (112g) butter
1 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
caramel sauce, recipe follows
1. In an electric mixer fitted with the dough hook and set to low speed, mix together yeast and 3 cups of flour. Pour in the water, oil, honey, and salt. Mix on low speed for about 10 minutes, until the dough is smooth and elastic. Add up to a 1/2 cup more flour if needed. Place in an oiled bowl, and cover. Let rise in a draft free place for 20-45 minutes, or until doubled in bulk.
2. Butter jumbo muffin tins generously. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll dough out into a rope. Use a knife or a bench scraper to cut off bits of dough the size of large grapes or ping pong balls. Mix brown sugar with the cinnamon. Coat each piece of dough in melted butter, and then in the cinnamon and sugar mixture. Place the balls of dough into prepared muffin tins, until half filled (Any extra dough can placed in other muffin tins, or oven safe containers). Cover, and let rise until double in bulk.
3. Bake for 20 minutes, or until golden brown on top. Remove from oven, and allow to cool for about 5 minutes. Invert onto a platter (Squish any escaped pieces of bread back on), and drizzle with caramel sauce.
caramel sauce
Please read all these directions a couple times before starting, and get all your ingredients set out before hand. Kick all other family members out of the kitchen, and best of luck. Caramel is very simple, but it requires good timing. Remember, I burned my first batch, so you might want extra cream on hand in case that happens. Experience is the best teacher for this. Give yourself plenty of time, and don’t be discouraged if it isn’t perfect at first. Once I got the hang of it, I made an extra batch which came out as well as the one before it.
3/4 cup heavy cream (make sure it is heavy cream, or heavy whipping cream, not regular whipping cream)
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup (220g) granulated sugar
1/4 cup (65g) water
1 teaspoon butter
1. Measure out cream into a liquid measuring cup. Stir in vanilla and set aside within an easy reach of the stove.
2. Stir sugar and water in a medium pot with tall sides. Set over medium-high heat. As the sugar dissolves and begins to boil, you may swirl the pot to mix the boiling sugar water. DO NOT STIR WITH A SPOON. This will make the sugar crystalize.
3. As the sugar syrup boils, watch very carefully for the color to change. You are looking for a nice, warm amber color, about the shade of cinnamon sticks. Don’t let it get any darker. (Even if it doesn’t look burnt, it can taste burnt. If it starts to smoke, you’ve let it go too far.) On a side note, my candy thermometer did not reach far enough into the pot to get an accurate reading of the syrup, but with such a small amount of syrup, the temperature changes pretty quickly anyway. It’s best to watch it and wait for it to turn the right color.
4. As soon as it turns the proper amber color, pull the pot off the heat. Whisk in the butter, and then pour in the vanilla-cream mixture. It will now bubble violently. Whisk carefully but briskly. The caramel will start to solidify a bit., but keep whisking. Put the pot of caramel over low heat and whisk carefully for a minute or two until smooth. Pour into a heat proof jar, and allow to cool. Can be refrigerated for up to a week.
39 Responses to “monkey bread muffins”
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It is love at first sight!!! You did such an incredible job that I want to taste my computer just to get some of that sugar, cinnamon, caramel goodness. I. cannot. wait. to. try. this. a.s.a.p. Thank you so much, you are now my hero, I hope I can do this justice! Great blog, I love following. (PS. I am sorry to sound a bit obsessed, I just adore monkey bread)
My goodness that last picture is just divine! You really know how to tempt a girl don’t you
One word – wow! I don’t think I could resist a plateful of these.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Dara Michalski and Jaime, Jaime. Jaime said: Thanks! RT @PickyPalate: Fabulous! RT @sophistimom Monkey Bread Muffins with Caramel Sauce {new post on sophistimom} http://bit.ly/e5CjN8 [...]
These look fabulous! A great excuse to buy a jumbo muffin pan.
I got a sugar high just looking at these. Oh yuuuum!
I’ve been dying to make monkey bread. I love the idea of little muffins so I don’t eat the whole thing by myself!
How awesome is that! Love the idea of making muffins out of those balls of dough. I’ve seen loafs made almost like that but muffin so much better!
Can you make this in say, a bundt cake pan if you don’t have jumbo muffin pans?? If so, how hot and how long?? Thanks Jaime! This looks fabulous!
Yes, you can make this in a bundt pan. I would keep it at 350—or maybe 325. Then I would bake it for about 30 minutes, and check on it. When you press on it, it should feel firm and not squish down much. Hope that helps, and thanks for asking, Melony!
If you’re making that much bread, maybe you should open a bakery
Holy cow, these look INCREDIBLE.
Thanks Jaime!!!! We are making these!
Monkey bread is one of our favorites, but we have always done it in a bundt pan, but my kids would love it like this!
Josh loves monkey bread, I will be trying this one!
I had never heard of monkey bread here in the UK, and I can now safely say that I will never forget monkey bread. This bread looks absolutely divine!
Monkey see, monkey eat…so calling my name!!
Brilliant idea making muffins out of these! Excellent portion control.
Your pictures are fantastic! So tantalizing. Portioning this is a great idea; my eyes are always bigger than my stomach and I always end up taking too much.
This monkey bread looks divine! Gotta try something like this soon.
Lana—portion control is great—as long as you don’t eat four of them, like I did!
Thanks, everybody!!
Yum. I looks wonderful.
What an awesome idea to make these in muffin tins! Why did I never htink of that? I’m totally going to try this
I actually just posted cinnamon rolls in muffins tins – we are thinking alike. So glad someone sent me this page on stumble upon 
Thumbs up from me!
Jaime – what happens if you use regular cream instead of heavy?? I think mine is heavy, but I freeze it in cubes so I always have it and now I can’t remember!!
We made it today! Fabulous! Guess our cream on hand was fine…one thing though…would have liked the caramel to be saltier. It was a little too sweet for our tastes! If I was to add salt, would I add it with the butter or when and how much do you think would be good??
Hi Jaime, just wanted to let you know I made this divine recipe and it turned out more than great. Thanks so much again, love your blog. Here is the post on my blog, I mentioned the recipe is from you!
http://seeminglygreek.blogspot.com/2011/02/monkey-bread-muffins-with-homemade.html
Thanks again!
It has been so long since I’ve made monkey bread muffins…think I need to do it this weekend! Looks delish!
Oh my stars these look divine! I could eat 12 of ‘em!
Me too, DessertForTwo, but then again, I practically did!
Your muffins are SO gorgeous! I haven’t had monkey bread in ages, but I’m thinking it might need to be one of my projects for this weekend
I grew up on monkey bread and it never gets old. Now who’s makin monkey bread? Just email me and i will be on my way…
Thank you Jaime! These are sooo yummy! I’m actually not supposed to have any sugar while I’m pregnant and I’m having stomach-ache because of it, but how how can you resist something like that! Especially with the caramel sauce!! It was actually quite easy to do and the kids had lots of fun helping, and then I just had to have a taste of it! Gosh! I’ll have to do it again, when the baby is here and I’ll have the load for myself for sure! Thanks for your yummy-recipes, I’m always trying them out and got loads saved on the computer to do in the summer when I can eat this again!
Sonja–I’m so sorry you can’t eat sugar while you’re pregnant. Ah! The things we do for our kids!
I hope everything goes smoothly for you, and on the meantime I’ll try to post some non-sugary recipes.
Oh my goodness that looks SOOOOO good….
[...] you like our recipes? The monkey bread muffins I posted a few months ago sold out the quickest. It may have been the last day of school, but the [...]
I’m addicted to this stuff. This was my first attempt at doing anything with yeast and I loved it. I made my first batch in the muffin tins and a couple days later tried baking a batch in a loaf pan. Both times the results were delicious. Instead of the caramel sauce I combine any leftover cinnamon/sugar mix and butter and drizzle it over that bread before baking.
The picture on the lower left corner shows my second batch: http://www.flickr.com/photos/2cute_yadi/6169384389/
[...] and I must give all gratitude and thanks to this sophisticated mom whom I follow on my blog feed: Sophistimom. She was the one who unknowingly introduced me, I sincerely enjoy, admire, and appreciate it. [...]
Could I use refrigerated biscuits instead? I know they probably won’t taste as good but I’m going to be short on time when I plan to make this plus I don’t have a mixer to make dough. If I can use the refrigerated biscuits, how many cans would I need and would the temperature and cook time be the same?
tab–You probably could use the refrigerator biscuits, but I don’t know how many packages you would need. Since the recipe is just rolling everything in the cinnamon-sugar mixture, you could use as much or as little as you need. As long as the balls of dough fill up the muffin tin indentations in the same way, the cooking time and temperature would be the same, I think.
Where I live, you can buy frozen bread dough in the freezer section. If you were to buy that, it might work more like the recipe. Good luck!