As the weather gets colder here, my urge to bake kicks in. Yesterday I got a hankering for monkey bread. (Hey, even Cindy Crawford likes it!) Unfortunately they don’t seem to sell any kind of pre-prepared bread dough at my grocery store, so I decided to make it from scratch. I’d never even done a yeast bread before! My only previous yeast experiment was pizza dough (and I think we all remember how that went). But I persevered. I kneaded and I mixed (“Thanks, Stickmaster!”) and I pushed and I pulled. Eventually I got the damn thing in the oven. It actually turned out quite tasty, but there was one crucial flaw: it fell apart! The little balls didn’t stick together! I don’t know if my dough was too floury or what. Snookums thought it was great, but he’d never had it before. He didn’t realize that it’s not supposed to be a mound of individual cinnamon balls, but rather a cohesive loaf. It’s good to feel appreciated, though.
Sidenote: Bread is so damn labor-intensive! I don’t think I’ll be doing this very often. I’d rather pay a dollar for a loaf than spend three hours tending a big pile of goo.
amy
May 4, 2002 — 8:02 am
sort of like when i baked homemade pretzels (check out a recipe sometime – it’s sooo hard – yeast, knead, boil & bake – but they taste pretty damn good) and they looked NOTHING like pretzel-shapes…more like clogged intestines or something.
yet chad ate the entire plateful. (and ended up paying for it later in the value-city restroom! oops.)
comfits
August 30, 2003 — 1:22 am
Why don’t you try using the refrigerated biscuits next time? You just buy a couple of tubes–plain old buttermilk ones. Coat one of those jello/angel food mold pans with cooking spray. Turn the biscuits into balls and coat with cinnamon, sugar, etc. Then throw them in the pan, slop some butter on top, & bake at whatever seems reasonable–350? They stick together great. The ones at the bottom of the mold are the best cuz they’re so gooey!! Oh, you can turn the pan over & pull the monkey bread out. They are very presentable that way. Note: I do have an actual recipe for this, but was too lazy to go get it. If you need the real recipe, let me know & I suppose I will go dig it up.
Kris
August 30, 2003 — 9:17 am
Thanks, comfits, that’s the way I used to make them at home in the US. Unfortunately the rest of the world lacks behind in America in terms of pre-prepared, refrigerated dough, which is the whole problem. I haven’t been able to find biscuits like that in either England or Australia.
Katlin Reede
March 22, 2005 — 9:26 am
I love the way your’s came out and I would like the recipe to be posted on this site. Thank You and Great Job!!!