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Monkey Bread Recipe
November 2, 2003 | by Heidi | Filed under
The Neiman Marcus Cookbook
I have only a sliver of experience with monkey bread.
My friend Hadley would make monkey bread for us --best served with a side of howling wind and driving rain. Her version was warm, ooey, gooey, fun to make, and impossible not to pig out on. Hadley up and moved with her family to the sanity of New Zealand --husband and little ones in tow, and I have been deprived of monkey bread ever since.
I dropped $50 for the new Neiman Marcus Cookbook last week and low-and-behold, they've got their own Monkey Bread recipe. A clear sign in my mind that it was time for a revival.
In case you are curious, this bread gets its name because you goop pieces of dough together before baking them in a muffin tin or cake pan and then pull the pieces back apart with your fingers after the finished product comes out of the oven -- sort of monkey-like.
Hadley's monkey bread reminded me more of pull-apart cinnamon rolls. I have an email into her and will post her recipe when she sends it to me. Hers literally dripped with thick, melted buttery, cinnamon-sugar in the cracks.
This dough was more of a standard yeast-based milk dough. I used a very similar recipe to make home-made hamburger buns a couple years back. This one was slightly sweeter.
I cheated on one step and dunked the dough pieces in sugar after the called-for butter dunk. Thats why you see crunch sugar crystals coating the monkey bread in the picture. It is damn tasty straight out of the oven, different and more simple than I remember. I ate monkey bread for both breakfast and lunch this morning, which is testimony in itself.
One last thing. It didn't even occur to me until after I baked these that this is the actual 'cover recipe' from the Neiman Marcus Cookbook. That's right, they put monkey bread on the cover of a $50 book. Their monkey bread is beautiful, it almost looks like a brioche. Next time I make this recipe I will try to do their vision justice. There was no picture next to the recipe (only on the cover), so what you see here is what you get -- monkey bread rustica.
In some of the early entries on this site I didn't request permission to run the recipe I was writing about from the publisher so it won't appear here. The majority of entries on 101 Cookbooks will have the recipes attached, this just happens to be one of the ones that doesn't.
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Your Comments
clotilde said:Well, I went on amazon to look at the cover of the book, and I find your pic more appetizing, the sugar crystals make all the difference!
I'd never heard of monkey bread before. Do you think it's an Australian thing?
I've actualy read that it is Cajun in origin in a couple places...
Maybe it's a Southern thing as the Sweet Potato Queens' Big Ass Cookbook has a recipe for Bacon Monkey Bread just like the one I grew up on (in New Jersey). Delish! Your picture is simply gorgeous! And I love your site.
The thought of trying a really savory monkey bread never really dawned on me. Im a huge fan of the fake bacon (im vegetarian)....I bet that could be good (maybe with some grated cheese for the ooze factor). It seems like alot of people like to make monkey bread with those cyber-canned biscuits...I have to say, I don't like those. Im ALL about the homemade biscuit or nothin'...Let me see if I can paste the link to the Sweet Potato Queen recipe w/o making a mess of it:
Heidi,
I'm simply stunned with your site. Beautiful photos, beautiful recipes, a library of cookbooks--what a better premise for a weblog I cannot imagine.
I also have never heard of monkey bread. I didn't even think monkeys ate bread... :)
Do you recommend the N-M Cookbook? Fifty dollars is a LOT for a cookbook, but if it's good...
maia said:Hello there! I am a cookbookaholic as well. Your site is great!
Thanks everyone for your support. Im going to cook a couple more recipes from the Neiman Marcus book in the near future and let you know if I would drop the $50 again. I am going to try the 'Fresh Market Tortilla Soup Con Queso' hopefully tomorrow.
Right now the two books I would buy 100 times over are the "Wildwood: Cooking from the Source in the Pacific Northwest" and The Michael Bauer: Secrets of Success Cookbook. So far I'd also recommend the Zuni Cafe Cookbook, but I want to cook a few more recipes from it first.
while hunting for an old recipe I came across
this site. What caught my eye was "Monkey bread". I just recently retrieved my sisters version of monkey bread to make for a couple of my grandchildren. Her version is very simple. you only need 3 things. 1: bundt pan.
2: 2-4 rolls of pillsbury biscuits, cut into quarters.
3:cinnamon sugar, to taste.
Dip the cut up biscuits into the cinnamon sugar, coating all sides, then put them into the bundt pan.
Bake at 350° for about 30 minutes until done.
The simplisity of this version of Monkey Bread allowed the grandchildren to help make it. and did they enjoy telling mommy and daddy that they helped make it. It was enjoyed by all.
Below is a link to the Neiman Marcus cookbook from jessica's biscuit. They are an online cookbook store, where all of the books are at a discount. The NM book is offered at $31.50. There is also a photo of the cover so that you may see their monkey bun! Yum!!
Niki said:As an Australian I'm completely positive it's not an Australian recipe. I'm just as interested by it as the rest of you! I'm still uncertain about your line about breaking up the bread - sort of monkey like. What do you mean by that? Also, when you speak of "canned biscuits" I'm guessing you don't mean what we know as biscuits - which you call cookies! What are biscuits US-style?
Additionally, Clotilde - I'm wondering if you ask if it's an Australian recipe because it was introduced by a friend who now lives in New Zealand. Aust and NZ are completely separate countries with very different backgrounds, histories and cuisines. It's a common misconception to think they are one and the same. :-) I know New Zealanders get more upset about this than Australians, so in a way this Melbournian is speaking up for them.
Hi Heidi,
In Cooking Light's new Best of Cookbook, they have a monkey bread recipie. Do you suppose it would as good as this? I bet you can find it on their website. It would be intertesting to try.
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