Gooey Monkey Bread is a sweet, sticky treat with easy pull apart layers. Perfect for a Holiday breakfast, brunch, or warm it up for dessert!
When it comes to the holidays, this sweet and Gooey Monkey Bread is a Baked Good that is a must have for your breakfast or brunch table. Try my Maple Bacon Monkey Bread for a savory flavor, or Banana Monkey Bread for another pull apart bread that is easy to share!
Why You’ll Love This Monkey Bread?
- Sweet and sticky bread for breakfast or dessert that the kids will love helping you make.
- The layers of the bread are easy to pull apart to make it perfect for sharing.
Sabrina’s Gooey Monkey Bread Recipe
Monkey Bread is a kid-friendly recipe from start to finish. The dough cooks up like dumplings so they have a great time pulling it apart, and it’s so easy for little helpers to help prep. A plastic knife is all you need to cut the dough into quarters for this recipe. It so simple, but it’s a sweet, pull-apart bread with a caramel-like, dessert flavor that meets coffee cake made in no time with basic ingredients! Perfect to enjoy on a Holiday morning or would be great for the weekend mornings too!
Recipe Card
Ingredients
- 36 ounces refrigerated buttermilk biscuit dough , (3 packages), each cut into quarters
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1/2 cup unsalted butter
- 1 cup brown sugar , packed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and add the sugar, cinnamon, and biscuit quarters to a ziplock bag and shake well.
- Add the pieces to a bundt pan.
- Add the butter and brown sugar to a medium saucepan on medium heat and bring to a boil for one minute before pouring onto the bundt pan.
- Bake for 35-40 minutes, remove from oven, let cool for 10-15 minutes then place a plate over the bottom of the bundt pan and flip over to remove.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
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Sabrina’s Tips
If your store doesn’t have biscuit dough, you can use another pop-open can of dinner roll dough to make this. The taste and texture of the classic biscuit dough version is preferred, but once you coat it in melted butter and cinnamon sugar, you might not even notice a switch in the dough you’re using.
Table of Contents
About this Recipe
Monkey Bread is a holiday favorite breakfast (a Christmas morning tradition for many!) that is incredibly easy to throw together because it uses store-bought buttermilk biscuit dough and a few extra ingredients you already have in your pantry, like cinnamon, brown sugar, and unsalted butter. Only 10 minutes of prep time and within an hour, this sweet sticky treat will be ready to enjoy for breakfast or dessert!
Can this be made ahead of time?
Yes! This bread is perfect to make for the holidays the night before you plan to serve. You can store it at room temperature overnight in an airtight container. Just hold off on the butter and brown sugar mixture until right before you are about to bake it. This recipe will also freeze well and stay good for up to 4 weeks. Defrost in the refrigerator overnight. Since this bread is best served warm, you will want to reheat it after it has thawed. Wrap in tinfoil and warm in the oven for a total time of 6-8 minutes at 325 degrees, just until the bread is warm. This makes the butter and sugar mixture softer, so the bread will easily pull apart.
Baking Tips & Tricks
- Use a non-stick bundt pan to make flipping the bread onto a plate easier.
- Save time by melting butter in a small bowl in the microwave for 1 minute at a time. Then whisk in the brown sugar until well-combined before pouring it over the biscuit dough.
- If you don’t have a bundt pan, you can make this in a loaf pan by cutting the cooking time down by about half, then check it every 10 minutes or so.
Serving Ideas
This bread is perfect to enjoy on a quiet cold morning warmed up with a nice cup of coffee or Hot Chocolate. You can also enjoy this for a holiday brunch on Thanksgiving or Christmas. Try drizzling with Chocolate Ganache and a dollop of Whipped Cream. For dessert, serve it up warm with scoop of Vanilla Ice Cream. Add some Salted Caramel Sauce and nuts for another layer of sweet sundae goodness!
How to Store
- Serve: This bread is best served immediately after baking. Let cool for 1-15 minutes before serving so the sugars can set and cool a little.
- Store: This bread can be at room temperature overnight in an airtight container or in the refrigerator for 2-3 days before it becomes too stale. Warm gently in a microwave before serving.
- Freeze: You can freeze monkey bread wrapped tightly for up to 3-4 weeks. Defrost in the refrigerator overnight and reheat in the oven before serving.
Slow Cooker Method
- Spray your slow cooker insert generously with baking or cooking spray.
- Coat then biscuit dough pieces in the cinnamon sugar mixture.
- Prepare your butter and brown sugar sauce on the stove.
- Add half the coated dough to the bottom of the slow cooker.
- Add half of the sugary butter to the top of the dough.
- Add remaining dough pieces and then top with the rest of the brown sugar butter sauce.
- Before you add the lid, cover the insert with paper towels or a kitchen towel, that will stretch across the top. This will help prevent excess moisture.
- Place lid over towels and cook on High for 3 hours.
Frequent Questions
This is traditionally called monkey bread because the cake is made up of little dough pieces, making it easy to pull apart with your hands, like a monkey would eat it. It’s also called golden dumpling cake, monkey puzzle bread, and pinch-me cake, and is meant to be served while it is still warm so you can easily pluck it apart. A lot of families serve this sweet bread on Christmas morning.
Yes, you can assemble the monkey bread entirely, then cover it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it overnight. Store-bought dough makes this really easy. You don’t have to worry about the yeast rising too much and ruining the dough.
Variations
- Nuts: Fold in ½ cup chopped, toasted pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, or peanuts for some salty crunch to balance the sweetness.
- Cinnamon Rolls: Swap the refrigerator biscuit dough for store bought cinnamon roll dough and alter the cinnamon sugar mixture. Reduce the sugar to ¼ cup sugar and leave out the ground cinnamon so it isn’t overpowered with double cinnamon flavor.
- Chocolate Monkey Bread: You can turn this bread into a Chocolate Monkey Bread by adding in cocoa powder and chocolate chips.
- Caramel Sauce: Instead of melting the butter and brown sugar together, you can use a Homemade Salted Caramel Sauce for this monkey bread recipe instead, which would be the perfect sweet and sticky match for this bread!
- Toppings: If you’re serving this bread for a holiday, make it more festive by dusting it with powdered sugar and cinnamon right before serving. You can also drizzle with some icing and top with chopped pecans.
Homemade Buttermilk Biscuit Dough
This recipe uses store-bought buttermilk biscuit dough, but you can definitely make this homemade monkey bread from scratch by using the dough from my recipe for Buttermilk Biscuits. Just rip the dough into biscuit-sized balls and follow the rest of the recipe as written. Plus, you can save some dough for later and make biscuits for dinner!
Related Recipes
More Monkey Bread Recipes
Photos used in a previous version of this post.
i love this recipe the best .This is now a tradition to make on thanksgiving or christmas..thank you ..i love it
What about cooking spray?
Can you use Pillsbury biscuit and what size biscuits?
The instructions say put sugar, cinnamon and biscuits in a bag and shake until coated. Then it says to pour sugar over it. Didn’t you use all the sugar in the bag? If not, how much would be left over to pour? I’m confused. Thank you
Sorry about that. I’ve edited to take that part out. Enjoy!
When I make this (tried twice) mine comes out gritty (sugar) and not gooey. What am I doing wrong? I’ve had good gooey monkey bread before from other people and mine just doesn’t turn out the same. Help!
It sounds like the butter and brown sugar mixture needs to cook longer. Make sure your burner is on medium heat and then bring it to boil. Let it boil for one minute before pouring it in to the pan. Hope this helps for next time.
This recipe was amazing I cannot thank you enough very easy fast and I love the fact that you can click on the times and have a kitchen timer on your phone that’s perfect thank you so much have a great evening
You’re welcome, Whitney!
Yes please! Monkey bread is the BEST!
Couldn’t agree more, Cathy! Enjoy!!
Monkey bread is such a wonderful treat! Perfect for a holiday breakfast! 🙂
Definitely!
Oh my goodness ! This monkey bread is so inviting!
It really is so good!
This looks DIVINE! Monkey bread is one of my weaknesses!
ME TOO!
Looks gorgeous! I’m not sure why I never made monkey bread before but I look forward to trying yours. I have tried few of your cookie recipes and they turned out perfect.
So glad you’re enjoying all of the recipes!
What a great way to start the day! Love this bread!
This looks so delicious! I can almost smell it baking in the oven! Perfect as part of a holiday brunch menu!
Thank you, yes, it made the whole house smell like Christmas!