I remember a few treats from my childhood, and a favorite is definitely monkey bread. It's a simple treat and can be made using frozen bread dough (if you're short on time or, ahem, skill) and I would have to say that it's not altogether *that* bad for you. Once you're comfortable with the recipe it's easy to tweak it a bit to include favorite ingredients, like my variation with cardamom. Mmmmm, it tastes extra-cozy!
Cardamom-Spiced Monkey Bread
Ingredients:
- 2 1/2 tsp yeast
- 3 c all-purpose flour
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/4 c sugar
- 2 tbsp room-temperature butter
- 1 c water
- 1 tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 tsp ground cardamom
- 1/2 c sugar
- 1/2 c butter
- 1 c brown sugar
- 2 Tbsp light corn syrup
- 2 tsp ground cardamom
- Make the dough by hand, in a mixer, or using the dough setting on your bread machine using yeast, flour, salt, white sugar, 2 tablespoons butter, and water.
- In a medium saucepan on low heat, melt 1/2 cup of butter, stir in brown sugar, cardamom, and corn syrup. Stir until it forms a smooth syrup. Remove from heat.
- Roll dough into a long log and cut dough in one inch chunks. Mix 1/2 c sugar, cinnamon, and cardamom together and drop one chunk at a time into the spiced sugar mixture. Thoroughly coat dough pieces, then layer them loosely in a greased bundt pan, then pour the syrup that you cooked together over the whole thing. It will trickle down and coat all the pieces (and it's a lot more kid-friendly than trying to dip the chunks of dough). I like to put the extra spiced sugar mixture in my cinnamon-sugar shaker since it makes the most delicious cinnamon toast.
- Let rise in a warm spot until dough is just over the top of the pan, 20-30 minutes.
- Bake in a preheated 375 degree F (190 degree C) oven for 20 to 25 minutes or till golden brown. Remove from oven, place a plate face down in top of the pan and, using oven mitts to hold plate on pan, turn over both until bread slides out onto plate. Serve warm...and enjoy!
Comments for this post
