I was going through a couple of books I have and found this monkey bread recipe in the Baking for Dummies book by Emily Nolan. This was the first book I bought to learn to bake. It has all the basic information on baking principles, tools and techniques, a number of recipes, troubleshooting tips, and a lot more.
This monkey bread is also called pull-apart bread because it has to be pulled apart with your hands instead of cutting it.
Why is it called the 'Monkey Bread'?
It is believed that monkey bread originated in Hungary. Hungarian immigrants brought their dessert arany galuska ("golden dumpling") with them when they immigrated to America. Monkey bread became the more common term for this Hungarian-Jewish dessert.
But why the name "monkey" bread? We can safely assume that it has to do with how the bread is eaten, picking and pulling pieces of the bread just like how a monkey would go about its eating business without caring much about eating etiquette.
Ingredients
Part-1 Ingredients:
- All-Purpose Flour
- White Sugar
- Baking Powder
- Salt
- Cold Butter
Part-2 Ingredients:
- Semisweet chocolate chips
- Milk
Part-3 Ingredients:
- White Sugar
- Ground Cinnamon
- Melted Butter
Step-by-Step Instructions
1. Preheat the oven to 350F for 15 minutes. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.
2. In a mixing bowl, sift and combine all the ingredients mentioned in Part-1 except butter.
3. Cut the cold butter into the flour mixture until the mixture resembles a coarse meal.
4. Stir in the Part 2 ingredients and combine to form a dough.
5. The final pull-apart bread dough is ready!
6. Divide the dough into 16 balls.
7. Place them in the prepared baking pan. The balls will touch.
8. Combine the remaining ¼ cup sugar and the cinnamon. Sprinkle them with the cinnamon-sugar mixture.
9. Bake for 30 minutes, until light brown. Cool in the pan and set on a wire rack before removing from the pan.
If you tried this Monkey Bread (aka Pull Apart Bread) recipe, please leave a 🌟 star rating and let me know how it went in the 📝 comments below!
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Recipe
Monkey Bread (aka Pull Apart Bread)
Ingredients
Part-1 Ingredients:
- 2 cups All-Purpose Flour
- ½ cup Sugar
- 1 tablespoon Baking Powder
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- 5 tablespoons Cold Butter cut into 5 pieces
Part-2 Ingredients:
- 1 cup Semisweet chocolate chips
- ⅔ cup Milk
Part-3 Ingredients:
- ¼ cup Sugar
- 1.5 teaspoons Ground Cinnamon
- 3 tablespoons Butter melted
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F for 15 minutes. Grease an 8-inch square baking pan.
- In a mixing bowl, sift and combine all the ingredients mentioned in Part-1 except butter.
- Using a pastry blender or a few pulses of a food processor, cut the cold butter into the flour mixture until the mixture resembles a coarse meal.
- Stir in the Part-2 ingredients and combine to form a dough.
- Divide the dough into 16 balls and place in the prepared baking pan. The balls will touch.
- Drizzle the balls with the melted butter.
- Combine the remaining ¼ cup sugar and the cinnamon. Sprinkle them with the cinnamon-sugar mixture.
- Bake for 30 minutes, until light brown. Cool in the pan and set on a wire rack for 10 minutes before removing from the pan.
My Notes
- For this monkey bread recipe, the butter has to be used straight from the refrigerator.
- If you don't have a food processor or a pastry blender, you can use 2 knives or 2 forks to cut in the fat. To use a pastry blender, mix the ingredients while cutting into the fats with the blender using a rocking, up-and-down bouncing motion.
- To divide the dough into 16 balls, you can follow my method. First, divide the entire dough into 2 equal parts. Roll the 2 parts into 2 separate logs. Cut each log into 8 pieces. While doing this, flour the surface generously. I also sprayed my hands with non-stick oil spray, so handling the dough was easy.
- Similarly, use the butter wrapper to grease the baking pan.
- I pretty much followed the recipe, but for the 6th step. I melted the 3 tablespoons of butter in the microwave oven, and that was really a lot of butter. My husband was having "are you crazy to pour so much butter and sugar" look on his face. So instead of using the entire butter and sugar mentioned in the recipe, I followed his advice of just brushing the dough with little butter, sprinkling very little sugar, but took another 1.5 teaspoons of cinnamon little cocoa and sprinkled it over the balls of dough.
- I baked the bread for 32 minutes. I would advise cooling it in the pan for at least an hour before taking it out. I tried to remove the bread after 30 minutes, and the bread started to fall apart and crumble. Anyway, I managed to get 10-12 good pieces. The bread was very moist inside but a bit dry on the tops. I guess it was because I did not use the entire 3 tablespoons of butter as mentioned in the original recipe. But the taste was phenomenal, with the melted chocolate chips, a hint of sweetness, and a freshly ground cinnamon aroma.
susan says
I was looking for something to bake, which did not take eggs (since we were out), and ran across this recipe and it was wonderful. I did substitute the milk with 1/3 c. sour cream and 1/3 c. soy milk. My son loved them. Thanks!
You're welcome Susan. I'm so glad that your son liked it.
Lata says
Hi Madhuram,
I made this recipe last evening with only 1 cup of flour, I got about 7. And must say this was awesome!! and easy too.
Madhuram says
Dhivya, Welcome to my blog!
You can just add the plain milk - no need to boil. Let me know if you liked the bread.
Dhivya says
great receipe!!! but have a small doubt , shuld the milk be boiled before mixing ? pls tell me so that it will be helpfull for me to make the cake
Madhuram says
Kamala, thank you for sending the ingredient.
Nandita, that's a very good combination. I would try it the next time.
Thanks Uma, Cham, Arundathi, Ranji, Rachel, Divya, Spillay, Sowmya, Madhavi, Bhawana.
Anamika, it's my pleasure. You have such a wonderful blog.
Rama, welcome to my blog. Hope you find it interesting.
Thanks Sia. Try it and you would love the taste too.
sia says
i love the title madhu, monkey bread 😉 😛
Rama says
That bread looks lovely...
anamika: the sugarcrafter says
Madhu..first of all ..thank you for visting my blog...and leaving such lovely words....in fact,i simply love the eggless recipes that your have been putting in the posts..and this eggless Chocolate Chip and Cinnamon Monkey bread recipe is good. Good, you posted them !
Bhawana says
This looks very nice dear..
Madhavi says
Hey..lovely recipe..looks great, yummmmmm!!!thanxxx for sharing..
sowmya says
monkey bread looks delicious...
Spillay says
I can almost smell it all the way here 🙂 . Looks so good.
DivyA Vikram says
lovely monkey bread..looks too yumm..but taste good with hot cupa tea..
rachel says
Like the name monkey bread!!!
its baked beautifully!!
ranji says
yummy monkey bread madhuram...great step by step instructions!!!thanks for sharing
Arundathi says
Thanks for the step-by-step photos, Madhu. The bread looks absolutely delicious. Sometimes, you just have to use all the butter, huh! 😀
Cham says
Delicious monkey bread 😛 Is there any leftover ❓ Nice way to use this special ingredient 😉
Uma says
that bread looks lovely, Madhu! Love the name too.
nandita says
I did not know that pull aparts were also called monkey-bread 😯 cute name for a nice bread, i'd love to eat this dipping in milk 🙂
kamala says
The bread has come out beautifully.Glad u like the ingredient.