Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Tasty Tuesdays: lucky number 10

Hello and good evening to you worthy friends. Please, please, come closer. Ah, nuh, too close, a little too close. There...welcome to Agrabar, city of mystery and enchantment...wow, can anyone name that movie? Please comment.

I got a little carried away there, but I hope I've still garnered your attention for today's tasty recipe. This is BY FAR my most requested recipe in my repertoire, so I thought, why not give the people what they want? Ask and you shall receive.

Today's recipe is...drum roll please...MONKEY BREAD. This is a crowd pleaser without a doubt. It puts the shamma-lamma in the ding-dong and is the bomb-diggity. Health nuts beware: there is absolutely zero nutritional value as it involves butter, sugar, brown sugar, processed cans of bread product and basically results in the most gooey, glorious breakfast treat you ever laid your lips on.

me with my favorite breakfast treat

My family started making monkey bread for Christmas morning roughly ten years ago, but let me tell you, we have brought it out of the "Christmas only" recipe category and it has been making numerous appearances at many a brunch. It has graced the tables of New Years brunch, Sunday family brunch, Lianna's bachelorette party brunch and many, many more. This recipe makes me think of family, and produces a warm fuzzy feeling every time I make it.

a plate of monkey bread, ready for its closeup

It is worth noting, however, that in an attempt to make things easy one fateful Christmas morning, my dad had a momentary lapse of insanity and purchased frozen, pre-made monkey bread. Do NOT do this. You will be sorely disappointed, and you have no excuse for such tragic errors in judgment now that I'm bequeathing this recipe to you.

the pops with one of his versions on Christmas morning

While my dad and I go back and forth as to what the optimal recipe/prep method really is, I think I have it down to a science...at least to my liking. There are gobs of recipes out there for your perusal, but this is based on Pillsbury recipe with a couple tweaks.

So without further ado, I give you monkey bread!

Ingredients:

1 can Grands* biscuits
1 can cinnamon rolls (8-count, not grands)
1/2 C sugar
3-4 T cinnamon
1 C brown sugar
3/4 stick butter

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a bundt pan.

2. Combine white sugar and cinnamon in a ziploc bag. Cut each biscuit and cinnamon roll into quarters. Drop quarters into the ziploc bag and shake evenly to coat.

3. Melt butter and brown sugar together and stir to combine.

4. Place half of the coated biscuits/rolls into the bundt pan. Drizzle with half of the brown sugar/butter sauce. Arrange the remaining biscuits/rolls into the pan and top with the rest of the sauce.

5. Bake for approximately 30 minutes, or until cooked all the way through.

6. Make a valiant attempt to not consume the entire pan in one sitting.

the money shot (try to refrain from drooling)

It should be noted that this bread should not be cut, but rather picked apart. In fact, the action of picking at the bread is where monkey bread derives its name. When people gather around and pick at the glistening, golden brown sugar laden bread, they look like monkeys picking at their food.

Hope your family/friends enjoy this recipe as much as mine!

5 comments:

Kate said...

EASY! Aladdin. Looks Yum!

Anonymous said...

Why Aladdin, of course! This is by far my favorite Tasty Tuesdays edition yet! I loved your post, sissy! You crack me up! :)

RL said...

ahhh! yea for comments and yea for my fellow Alladin friends - woo hoo!

Anonymous said...

Aladdin, without a doubt, since that's what everyone else is saying, I concur (what movie is that from?). Yes, I admit, I did get rather lazy and make that egregious error on a never-to-be-forgotten Christmas morning - mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa...and, just for the record, I do think that your recipe has been the most consistently yummy - especially when you are the one actually executing the endeavor.

RL said...

Catch Me If You Can, of course, and your monkey bread snafu is more than forgiven...speak no more of the bread blunder!