Monkey Bread Muffins

Difficult: Nope
Time consuming: not actively - about a half hour to prep (depending on how fast you work), about 30-45 minutes to let the dough rise, then 15 minutes to bake.

Happy spring break fellow teachers, school employees, and/or students!  One of the nicest things about working in a school, besides all my awesome kiddos and fantastic colleagues, is all the breaks we get.   My parents live 4 hours away, so it's really great to get time around the holidays and over the summer to visit them.  Although I'll admit, this spring break definitely felt more like a winter break here in Cincinnati - I think it snowed at least 3 days and has been way to cold to do any real gardening.  You would think that with all this time off, I would've baked something really awesome.  But no.  I did make brownies, which I can't stop eating.  And pinned a bunch of new recipes to try.  Also, I did a ton of cleaning.  I remember when spring break meant going to Boca Raton with my sorority sisters.  Now I'm thrilled to have time to sleep in, deep clean my home, and catch up on episodes of Dance Moms.

Lucky for you, all this free time means another recipe for you! For March's special ed team meeting, I decided to make monkey bread. But I wanted the portions to be more single serving, so I turned to muffins.  I may have let my dough rise a little too much, so they weren't nearly as gooey as they could've been, but they were still doughy and cinnamony and all around delicious.

6 little dough balls in a greased muffin tin, one jumped out and bumped his shin...haha I crack myself up.  Maybe I spend too much time with preschoolers...

 

I'll admit that I did use prepared frozen dinner rolls instead of making the bread from scratch. I swear I had every intention of being completely home made, but then my car went in for service the day before our meeting and there was no way I'd be able to make bread from scratch. I realize biscuit dough was an option, but all the pictures I saw of monkey bread made with biscuit dough didn't look as good as those made with yeast breads. So I welcomed the help from the frozen food section of Krogers.

I loved that these were individual servings. Anything in mini form is just so cute. It also allowed for an awesome ratio of slightly caramelized sugar outside bits to ridiculously soft inside bites. The cinnamon adds wonderful flavor, and you can add more or less to taste. The glaze drizzled over the top really just knocks all the sweet goodness of the bread onto another level.  Other blogs have also suggested using a cream cheese glaze or just sweetened condensed milk over top.  If anyone tries those, I'd love to hear how they turn out!

The recipe

Yields 24 muffins

 

Ingredients
Monkey Bread
24 Rhodes dinner rolls, or generic equivalent; *thawed but still cold
1 stick butter, melted (possibly more)
3 tablespoons corn syrup
1 1/2 - 2 cups brown sugar
6-8 teaspoons cinnamon

Glaze
2 cups powered sugar
2-4 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
 
1. Spray 24 muffin cups with nonstick cooking spray.  Set aside.

2.  Combine butter and corn syrup in a bowl, set aside. In a medium sized bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon, set aside.  (I ended up using 1 3/4 cup brown sugar and 7 teaspoons of cinnamon; you may need more or less - just make sure to use 1 teaspoon of cinnamon per 1/4 cup of sugar)

3.  Cut each dinner roll into 6 pieces.  Dip pieces of roll into butter (about 6-10 at a time), then transfer to sugar mixture.  Toss to coat.  Put 6 pieces of dough per muffin cup.  Repeat until all the dough has been buttered and sugared.

4.  Spray plastic wrap with nonstick spray and cover each muffin tin.  Let sit in a warm part of your kitchen until the dough has doubled in size.  Try not to let it rise more than double - they'll still turn out but they won't be as soft and doughy nor will the pieces stick to each other the best they could.  While they are rising, preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

5.  Bake for 15-20 minutes, rotating pans at around 10 minutes if oven doesn't heat evenly.

6.  Remove from oven, let rest in pan for at least 10 minutes (do not cool completely in pan), then turn out onto a cooling rack.

7.  Prepare glaze by whisking all ingredients together.  Add more milk if you want it thinner, more sugar if you want it thicker.  Pour into a zip top bag, snip off the corner, then drizzle over the monkey bread.


*An easy way to thaw dough: move rolls from freezer to fridge for 8-12 hours before baking.  Or follow the directions on the package.



Recipe From Muffin Top Mommy

Pumpkin Pull-Apart Bread

Time consuming: yes.
Difficulty: hard.

Pumpkin | Part 2

This bread is so good, words can't describe how happy I was it turned out. I've never made a yeast bread before so that's partially why I was excited it turned out but also why I thought it was difficult to make. This bread is like an amazing fusion of pumpkin pie flavors and a cinnamon roll.

I first saw this recipe on Pinterest, then my Cooks Illustrated did an article on a pumpkin quick bread and I knew I had to make this for my school's monthly special Ed team meeting.

This recipe, although tasty, had a lot of down time between steps. While preparing this recipe I: did the dishes, wrote an IEP, skimmed through a new cookbook from the library, made chili, and watched tv and tooled around on Pinterest.  So be warned, have things to do.

The recipe

Ingredients
3/4 cup + 3 tablespoons canned pumpkin
2 oz cream cheese
1/8 cup milk

2 tablespoons butter, unsalted, melted
1/2 cup milk
1 envelope (2 1/4 teaspoon) active dry yeast
1/4 cup white sugar
2 1/2 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon salt

1 cup white sugar
2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp fresh ground nutmeg
2 tablespoons butter, unsalted, melted
  
2 tablespoons butter, unsalted
1/8 cup brown sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons milk
3/4 cup powdered sugar
1/4 - 3 teaspoons spiced or white rum, depending on how strong you want it to taste OR 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. Heat pumpkin puree in a saucepan stirring constantly to cook the puree and caramelize the sugars in the pumpkin, about 6-8 minutes over medium heat. Remove from heat. Add cubes of cream cheese and stir until melted and incorporated. Add milk and mix until combined. Set aside to cool (the fridge is fine).

2. Mix 2 tablespoons melted butter with warmed milk (microwave is fine). When mixture is around 100-110 degrees (check using a candy thermometer) mix into the bowl of your stand mixer with sugar and yeast - stir quickly to combine,then let sit for about10 minutes so the yeast can activate. It will look frothy and bubbly and smell like bread.

3. Add cooled (but not cold) pumpkin mixture, salt, and 1 cup of flour. Stir until combined. Add remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time. Knead for about 6 minutes (using a kitchen aid mixer on speed 2 and the dough hook). If after 6 minutes the dough is still wet or sticky, continue to knead adding 1 tablespoon of bread flour at a time until the dough is only slightly sticky and smooth.

4. Transfer dough to a greased bowl, cover with a damp towel, and leave in warm place to rise until about doubled in size (about 60-90 minutes). Because I live in Ohio and the weather is temperamental in the fall, it was particularly cool in my kitchen so I heated a small cup of water in the microwave, moved it to the back corner of the microwave, and set my bread bowl in to rise. **Do NOT turn on your microwave - just keep the door closed. If your kitchen is "normal" you can just leave it on the counter to rise.

5. While the dough is rising, melt 2 tablespoons of butter (if you haven't already) in a small bowl and mix with the sugar and spices to form a paste. Set aside. while you're waiting, prepare the pan. Grease and flour a 9"x5" loaf pan and set aside.

5. Once 90 minutes have passed or your dough has doubled in size, deflate the dough (aka punch it down) and turn onto a flour surface. Roll the dough into a rectangle approximately 12"x20" but don't stress if you can't eyeball measurements and end up with a rectangle 24"x16". If the dough becomes challengingly tough to roll, cover with a damp cloth and let rest for a few minutes then keep going.

7. Once your dough is rectangular, spread with the butter/sugar/spice mixture and evenly coat. Use your hands to press the mixture into the dough.

8. Cut dough into 3 long strips (if you rolled your dough out right you'd now have 3 strips each measuring 4"x20"). Stack the strips and cut in half so that the strips are now 10" long. Cut each 10" strip into thirds. Stack the strips so they stand vertically in the loaf pan. Put pan in a warm place, cover with a damp cloth, and let rise for 45 minutes. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

9. Bake for 30-40 minutes or until deep golden brown. While it's baking, prepare the glaze.

10. Combine all glaze ingredients (2 tablespoons butter, brown sugar, milk, powdered sugar, rum/vanilla) in a sauce pan and heat until combined and sugar has dissolved.

11.  After the loaf has baked, let cool for about 5-10 minutes.  Run a knife around the loaf and turn onto a plate, then carefully turn right side up.  Pour glaze over loaf, pull apart, and enjoy!  Alternatively you can glaze the loaf while it's still in the pan.



Inspired and slightly altered from Sunny Side Up