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Who can resist warm monkey bread coated in cinnamon sugar? We improved on the comfort food by swapping store-bought biscuit dough for a homemade brioche dough (it's not as hard as it sounds!). The result: an entire cake of pillowy pull-apart bites enough to feed a crowd, perfect for entertaining houseguests over the long Christmas weekend or bringing to a potluck. And that sticky caramel-sauce topping? We pour it over the whole thing after it's baked for an elegant, glossy finish. Here are some monkey bread tips before you get started.
Pan Plan
Baking it in a tube or Bundt pan instead of a cake pan creates more surface area, which leads to better browning. A perfect bite is just as much about the golden outside as it is the soft inside.
Sugarcoat
You can use granulated sugar to coat the inside of your pan, but a dusting of sanding sugar creates crunch and adds a sparkly finish. Don't forget to coat the tube, though–you don't want the middle to get left out and stick.
Stop, Drop, and Roll
Most monkey bread recipes have you form the balls of dough and then dip each one in melted butter and cinnamon sugar, but our method is far less time-consuming. Pat the dough into a flat surface for the second rise instead of leaving it in its usual rounded form. That then gets painted with melted butter and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar over both sides. This allows you to cut an exact grid and form each piece into perfectly even balls that are already coated in the good stuff. You get the exact same result with way less trouble.
Slam Dunk
You can pour the salted caramel sauce over the whole thing like we did here, but you can also serve it on the side for dipping. It is finger food, after all. Click here to finally figure out that whole caramel business.
Make Ahead
If you want to serve this first thing in the morning, you should make the dough one day ahead, as it requires a few hours of off-hands rising time when all is said and done. After punching the dough down the second time around (which lets out air and allows for a more even rise), pat it into a plastic-lined pan and chill in the refrigerator instead of the freezer. You'll be ready to cut and roll once you pull it out the next day.
