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My Homemade Monkey Bread Recipe is so much easier than you think! This from-scratch version of a cinnamon pull-apart is the perfect brunch recipe – we absolutely fell in love with this and we like it better than the ones made with biscuits.
HOMEMADE Monkey Bread Recipe
I always make monkey bread for Christmas. It’s a tradition and not worth the fight; one year I really wanted cinnamon rolls so I made both…because it was required.
In the past I’ve always made easy monkey with canned biscuits, but no more: from now on I will be making this Homemade Monkey Bread recipe! I absolutely love the flavor of the from-scratch dough. It’s lighter and airier than the store-bought kind. And – it’s way easier to make from scratch than I thought it would be.
What is Monkey Bread?
Monkey Bread is a delicious pastry made with either homemade yeasted dough or canned biscuits. Traditionally, it’s baked in a bundt pan. The dough is coated with cinnamon sugar and the entire thing is drenched in a brown sugar butter sauce. It gets it’s name because you pick at it (like a monkey picks at other monkeys).
Important Ingredients
- Instant Yeast – It’s important to use INSTANT yeast (I always use Fleischmann’s Rapid Rise). It’s a fast-acting yeast that makes baking from scratch much easier and faster than if you used active dry yeast.
- Flour – just regular all-purpose flour is the best for this recipe.
- Sugar – granulated sugar for the dough and brown sugar for the filling
- Butter – Unsalted or salted can be used
- Milk – regular, nonfat or even nondairy milk is fine
- Egg – adds a richness to the dough
How to make monkey bread dough
- You simply add your instant yeast in with your dry ingredients (flour, sugar, yeast, and salt).
- Milk, water, and butter get added to a measuring cup. I added slices of butter instead of a chunk, so it would melt easier.
- Once you have your wet ingredients in a microwave-safe dish, simply heat it until it’s about 120-130°F. This will wake up the yeast once it’s added to the dry ingredients.
- Mix the dough, adding more flour until it comes together – it will be soft and loose but cohesive. It should be soft to the touch but not have much transfer to your hands when touched.
- Once the dough is mixed turn it out onto a floured surface and knead it until it forms a ball that springs back at you.
- Then, let it rest for just 10 minutes. No need to wait for an hour to let it double in size!
How to make Monkey Bread
- Now it’s time to form your monkey bread. If you simply rolled out this dough, you could make cinnamon rolls, but we’re going to portion the dough into 36 small balls of dough.
- Make the coating: melt the butter and place in a small bowl. Mix granulated sugar and cinnamon in another small bowl. Dip the pieces into the butter then coat with cinnamon sugar mixture and place in your pan. You can use a bundt pan, 9×13-inch baking dish, or two loaf pans. (Directions for all are in the recipe card.) Be sure to spray your pan with nonstick cooking spray so it doesn’t stick.
- Melt remaining butter and stir it together with the brown sugar and remaining coating ingredients. Pour over the pieces in the pan.
- You do have to let the rolls rise until doubled in size. It only takes about 45 minutes in a warm place. (Tip: preheat your oven and let the rolls sit on top of the stove. The warmth from the oven will help them rise faster.)
- Once they’ve risen, just bake for about 20 minutes and then serve. They pull apart easily and are sweet and fluffy. We could NOT stop eating them!
Expert Tips
- This homemade monkey bread recipe is written to be made with an electric mixer fitted with the dough hook. I absolutely love my dough hook; it takes time off of having to knead my dough. If you don’t have an electric mixer, you can do this with a hand mixer or by-hand, it’ll just take longer to come together to form a ball.
- I recommend an instant read thermometer for working with yeast. It really does take the guesswork out of it, but if you don’t have one just think hot bathwater when testing temperature.
- I’ve used both a bundt pan and a 9×13-inch pan for this recipe. I’ve found that baking the monkey bread without a Bundt pan cooks faster and more evenly. I’m pretty much a pull-apart bread aficionado now after so many years of making it.
- If you have leftover brown sugar sauce, pour it over the monkey bread in the pan before letting the monkey bread rise.
Storage & Reheating
Leftover monkey bread can sit on the counter for up to 2 days as long as it’s in an airtight container. Reheat in the microwave or in the air fryer.
FAQs
Yes you can make this the night before. Assemble the entire thing in your baking dish and cover with plastic wrap. Place in the refrigerator overnight then take it out and place it near the oven while the oven is preheating so it can come to room temperature.
A tube pan or bundt pan is the most traditional but I love using a 9×13-inch cake pan for even baking. You can also use 2 loaf pans.
You could add 1 cup chopped nuts (walnuts or pecans) or even raisins, dried cranberries, or chocolate chips!
Be sure to spray the pan well with nonstick cooking spray or grease and flour it. Remove the bread from the pan 10 minutes after removing from oven (once it cools it’s hard to remove).
That would be my Easy Monkey Bread Recipe – it’s simple to swap biscuits for the homemade dough.
Homemade Monkey Bread Recipe
Ingredients
For the Dough
- 3-¼ to 3-¾ cups (403g-465g) all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup (50g) granulated sugar
- 1 packet Fleischmann's® RapidRise® Yeast – Instant Yeast (2 ¼ teaspoons)
- 1 teaspoon salt
- ¾ cup (177ml) milk whole, 2%, 1% or nonfat
- ¼ cup (59ml) water
- ¼ cup (57g) unsalted butter sliced into tablespoons
- 1 large egg
For the coating:
- ½ cup (113g) unsalted butter , melted
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
For the topping
- ½ cup (100g) packed brown sugar
- ¼ cup (57g) unalted butter
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Instructions
- It’s best to use a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook. You can also do this by hand or with an electric mixer, but it will take longer.
- Combine 2 cups flour, sugar, dry yeast and salt in a large mixer bowl and whisk until blended.
- Combine milk, water and butter in a microwave-safe bowl or measuring cup. Microwave on HIGH in 15 second increments until very warm but not hot to the touch, about a minute (120° to 130°F; butter won’t melt completely). Add to flour mixture with egg.
- Beat 2 minutes at medium speed, scraping bowl occasionally. Add another 1 cup flour; beat 2 minutes at high speed, scraping bowl occasionally. Stir in just enough remaining flour so that the dough will form into a ball.
- Knead on lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic and dough springs back when lightly pressed with 2 fingers, about 6 to 8 minutes. Cover with a towel; let rest for 10 minutes.
- Make the coating: melt the butter and place in a small bowl. Mix granulated sugar and cinnamon in another small bowl.
- Cut dough into 36 pieces (cut in half, cut each half in thirds and each third into thirds again, then each third in halves). Dip each piece into the melted butter and then roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture.
- Spray pan with cooking spray. Place dough into pan. Cover with towel; let rise in warm place until doubled in size, about 45 minutes.
- Preheat oven to 375°F.
- Make the topping: add remaining ¼ butter to the rest of the melted butter in the small bowl and heat until all melted. Add remaning cinnamon sugar mixture to the melted butter along with brown sugar and additional cinnamon. Stir to combine. Pour this mixture over the monkey bread pieces in the pan.
- 9×13-inch baking dish: place dough pieces into single layer. After rising, bake for about 20 minutes or until golden and cooked through.
- Fluted tube pan or Bundt pan: bake for about 40-50 minutes, or until golden and cooked through.
- Two 9×5-inch bread pans: bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden and cooked through.
- 12 monkey bread muffins: place 3 pieces in each greased muffin cup. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until golden and cooked through.
Recipe Notes
- If you plan to remove from the pan for serving, cool 5 minutes in pan then invert onto serving plate while still hot or it will glue to the pan.
- If using unsalted butter, add 1/4 teaspoon salt to the filling.
Awesome awesome but really really messy
This recipe was so easy and delicious! We decided to make a side of icing for family to dip the bread in, which made it super fun at Christmas breakfast! Family ritual started! Thank you!
Can you use regular instant yeast in this ?
I just wanted to report that I prepared these the night before and they turned out INCREDIBLE! I prepared them to the point of the long rise and put them in the fridge covered tightly in Saran wrap. This morning I put them in the oven and baked for about 25 minutes, I was using a thick pan and it was cold from being in the fridge. I will never use a different recipe, these were delicious! Thank you!!
So I made it all correctly right, well for the most part but I didn’t do the heating up of the butter etc. I haven’t baked it yet I’m letting it rise and I just wanted to know is it bad that I didn’t do that?
Hey Julia,
Did you end up making it the night before? I’m thinking of doing something similar, but I have no idea if it would work….Maybe you have to sit it out for a little while before baking….like get it all ready to bake, cover, refrigerate and then when you’re going to cook it, bring it to room temp first? I think I’m going to try that…
Hi! Did you try making it the night before? Did it work? Thanks!
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