Homemade monkey bread combines several tiny balls of dough coated in butter, cinnamon, and sugar. It’s basically a giant Bundt pan of gooey cinnamon rolls! Finish this fun breakfast or dessert treat with vanilla icing and serve pull apart style.
This recipe is brought to you in partnership with Red Star Yeast.
Have you ever had monkey bread before? You either (1) have eaten it and love it (2) have no idea what I’m talking about. If you fall into the latter category, let me explain what this outrageous recipe is.
What is Monkey Bread?
Monkey bread is a sweet, gooey Bundt cake made from balls of dough rolled in cinnamon sugar. Arrange the dough balls in a Bundt pan, then top it all with a buttery brown sugar sauce before baking. Invert it onto a serving plate, then drizzle with creamy vanilla icing. Each bite tastes like the sticky delicious center of cinnamon rolls. Monkey bread is served pull apart style, similar to my cinnamon roll wreath, where everyone tears off a piece—just like how monkeys pick at their food.
We love making monkey bread for special brunches and it’s always fun for Mother’s Day or as part of your Father’s Day recipes, too! You can have monkey bread for breakfast or dessert. Or dinner, or 2nd dessert, or lunch, or snack. (Hey, I’m not judging! Every time is a good monkey bread time!)
I decided it was time to update the photos, add a video tutorial, and include more helpful information so you can have monkey bread recipe success!
Video Tutorial: Monkey Bread Recipe
Here’s a video tutorial displaying each step. Use this as your guide.
4 Parts to Monkey Bread
There are 4 parts to this monkey bread. It sounds like a lot, but most of the ingredients are repeated in each. One thing to note is that you pour the brown sugar sauce over the dough balls before baking. It’s the secret to monkey bread’s gooey sticky texture!
- Homemade Dough: milk, sugar, yeast, eggs, butter, salt, flour
- Dough Ball Coating: butter, cinnamon, sugar
- Brown Sugar Sauce: butter, brown sugar, vanilla extract
- Vanilla Icing: confections’ sugar, milk, vanilla extract
Homemade Monkey Bread Dough
Before we walk through each individual step in this monkey bread recipe, let’s talk about the dough. This is the best monkey bread I’ve ever had because it starts with a rich homemade dough. Nothing compares to the flavor of homemade and you’ll be surprised how quickly the dough comes together. You can even get started on the dough the night before!
This is a rich dough, which means that it’s prepared with fat like milk, butter, and eggs. Rich doughs make soft breads such as Nutella babka, dinner rolls, and glazed doughnuts. Lean doughs, on the other hand, are made without much fat and produce crusty bread such as focaccia, homemade bagels, and pizza dough.
You need 7 ingredients for monkey bread dough:
- Milk: Liquid activates the yeast. Nondairy or low fat milks are fine, but whole milk produces phenomenal flavor and texture.
- Yeast: You can use active dry yeast or instant yeast. I recommend Platinum Yeast from Red Star, which is an instant yeast blended with natural dough improvers. Review my Baking with Yeast Guide before getting started if you need a little refresher on working with yeasted dough.
- Sugar: Sugar feeds the yeast, increases its activity, and tenderizes the dough.
- Eggs: Eggs provide structure and flavor.
- Butter: Butter promises a flavorful dough.
- Salt: You can’t make flavorful bread without salt!
- Flour: All-purpose flour is the structure of the dough.
Overview: How to Make Monkey Bread
- Prepare the dough: The dough comes together with a mixer. You can also make the dough by hand, but it requires a bit of arm muscle. After the dough comes together in the mixing bowl, it’s time to knead. You can simply continue beating the dough with the mixer for this step or you can knead the dough by hand. See my How to Knead Dough video tutorial for extra help with this step.
- Let the dough rise: The dough rises in about 1-2 hours in a relatively warm environment.
- Punch down the dough: Punch down the dough to release the air.
- Shape & coat dough balls: Pull off little pieces of dough and roll into balls. Dunk the balls into melted butter, then coat with cinnamon sugar. Little bakers love to help out with this step! Good thing to note: the heavier the cinnamon-sugar coating, the more these little monkey bread bites will taste like gooey cinnamon rolls.
- Let the shaped monkey bread rest for 20 minutes: Arrange the coated balls in a Bundt pan or tube pan, cover lightly, then set aside to rest as you preheat the oven. The balls will slightly rise during this time.
- Top with buttery brown sugar sauce: Before baking the monkey bread, mix melted butter, brown sugar, and vanilla extract together. Pour this sauce all over the dough balls.
- Bake: Bake until the top is lightly browned, about 40 minutes.
- Invert onto serving plate: Allow the monkey bread to cool for 5-10 minutes, then invert it onto a serving plate.
- Drizzle with vanilla icing: Whisk confectioners’ sugar, milk, and vanilla extract together until smooth. Drizzle all over the warm monkey bread.
Imagine the best cinnamon roll you’ve ever tasted. This monkey bread is even better because it’s stickier, softer, sweeter, and piled extra high. You’ll be licking your fingers clean and grabbing more and more bites. Though from-scratch monkey bread takes longer to prepare than a shortcut version made with canned biscuit dough, the results are incomparable. Once you smell the gooey cinnamon sugar bubbling in the oven, you’ll know you made the right decision.
More Indulgent Breakfast Recipes
- Star Bread
- Biscuit Breakfast Casserole
- Raspberry Twist Bread
- Apple Cinnamon Rolls
- Giant Cinnamon Roll Cake
- Berry Fritters
Homemade Monkey Bread
- Prep Time: 2 hours, 40 minutes
- Cook Time: 40 minutes
- Total Time: 3 hours, 20 minutes
- Yield: 12-14 servings
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Monkey bread combines several tiny balls of dough coated in butter, cinnamon, and sugar. It’s basically a giant Bundt pan of gooey cinnamon rolls! Finish this fun breakfast or dessert treat with vanilla icing and serve pull apart style.
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 cups (360ml) whole milk, warmed to about 110°F (43°C)
- 2 and 1/4 teaspoons Platinum Yeast from Red Star (1 standard packet)
- 1/4 cup (50g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1/3 cup (5 Tbsp; 71g) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 5 cups (625g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
Coating
- 3/4 cup (12 Tbsp; 170g) unsalted butter, divided
- 1 and 1/4 cups (250g) granulated sugar
- 1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon
- 2/3 cup (130g) packed light or dark brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Vanilla Icing
- 1 cup (120g) confectioners’ sugar
- 3 Tablespoons (45ml) whole milk
- 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Prepare the dough: Whisk the warm milk, yeast, and sugar together in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with a dough hook or paddle attachment. Cover and allow to sit for 5 minutes.
- Add the eggs, butter, salt, and 1 cup flour. Beat on low speed for 30 seconds, scrape down the sides of the bowl with a silicone spatula, then add the remaining flour. Beat on medium speed until the dough comes together and pulls away from the sides of the bowl, about 2 minutes. *If you do not own a mixer, you can mix this dough with a large wooden spoon or silicone spatula. It will take a bit of arm muscle!*
- Knead the dough: Keep the dough in the mixer and beat for an additional 5-7 full minutes, or knead by hand on a lightly floured surface for 5-7 full minutes. (If you’re new to bread-baking, my How to Knead Dough video tutorial can help here.) If the dough becomes too sticky during the kneading process, sprinkle 1 teaspoon of flour at a time on the dough or on the work surface/in the bowl to make a soft, slightly tacky dough. Do not add more flour than you need because you do not want a dry dough. After kneading, the dough should still feel a little soft. Poke it with your finger—if it slowly bounces back, your dough is ready to rise. You can also do a “windowpane test” to see if your dough has been kneaded long enough: tear off a small (roughly golfball-size) piece of dough and gently stretch it out until it’s thin enough for light to pass through it. Hold it up to a window or light. Does light pass through the stretched dough without the dough tearing first? If so, your dough has been kneaded long enough and is ready to rise. If not, keep kneading until it passes the windowpane test.
- 1st Rise: Lightly grease a large bowl with oil or nonstick spray. Place the dough in the bowl, turning it to coat all sides in the oil. Cover the bowl with aluminum foil, plastic wrap, or a clean kitchen towel. Allow the dough to rise in a relatively warm environment for 1-2 hours or until double in size. (I always let it rise on the counter. Takes about 2 hours. For a tiny reduction in rise time, see my answer to Where Should Dough Rise? in my Baking with Yeast Guide.)
- Generously grease a 10-12 cup Bundt pan with butter or nonstick spray. (Nonstick spray is best for this recipe.)
- Prepare the coating: Melt 1/2 cup (115g;1 stick) of unsalted butter in a medium bowl. Mix granulated sugar and cinnamon together in another medium bowl. You will use the rest of the butter, brown sugar, and vanilla later.
- Shape the dough: Use the video tutorial above as a guide for this step. When the dough is ready, punch it down to release the air. Working one at a time, take small pieces of dough and roll into balls (about 1.25 inches in diameter each). You will need 40-45 balls total, so be modest with their size. Dip each ball, one by one, in the melted butter and then generously roll in the cinnamon-sugar mixture to coat them. You may need more cinnamon-sugar depending how heavy you coat each ball. Arrange the balls in the Bundt pan as you go. Cover the pan with aluminum foil, plastic wrap, or a clean kitchen towel and allow the shaped monkey bread to rest for 20 minutes. The balls will slightly rise during this time.
- Adjust oven rack to a lower position and preheat oven to 350°F (177°C). (It’s best to bake the monkey bread towards the bottom of the oven so the top doesn’t burn.)
- Finish the coating: Melt remaining 1/4 cup (60g; 4 Tbsp) butter, then whisk in the brown sugar and vanilla extract. Pour evenly all over the shaped monkey bread.
- Bake for 35-45 minutes or until golden brown on top. Cover loosely with foil if the top is browning too quickly. Cool for 5-10 minutes, then invert onto a large serving plate or cake stand.
- Make the icing: Whisk all of the icing ingredients together. Drizzle over monkey bread. Cut the bread into generous slices or let everyone pick off the gooey pieces themselves. That’s the fun of this treat!
- Monkey bread tastes best served on the same day. Cover leftovers tightly and store at room temperature for 1 day and in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
Notes
- Freezing Instructions: Prepare recipe through step 4. After dough rises, punch it down to release the air, then roll into 40-45 small balls as directed in step 7. Do not coat the balls. Place shaped dough balls on a baking sheet, then refrigerate for 30 minutes. Once cold, the dough balls won’t stick together anymore. Place them in a freezer bag or freezer-friendly container, then freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw dough balls in the refrigerator or at room temperature, prepare the coating and Bundt pan, then coat the dough balls as instructed in step 7. Continue with the recipe.
- Overnight Instructions: Prepare the recipe through step 3. Cover the dough tightly and refrigerate for up to about 15 hours. At least 3 hours before you serve the monkey bread the next day, remove the dough from the refrigerator, keep covered, and allow to rise on the counter for about 1-2 hours. Continue with step 5.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Electric Stand Mixer or Large Glass Mixing Bowl and Silicone Spatula/Wooden Spoon | Whisk | 10- to 12-cup Bundt Pan
- Yeast: Red Star Platinum Yeast is an instant yeast. You can use Red Star Yeast active dry yeast instead. Rise times will be slightly longer using active dry yeast. Reference my Baking with Yeast Guide for answers to common yeast FAQs.
This post is sponsored by Red Star Yeast.
Reader Comments and Reviews
I made the monkey bread this morning for my family, everyone loved it. The top was nicely crunchy, and the coating turned into a golden caramel & covered the entire outside. I only did a few things differently, my oven runs hot, I baked it @ 325F for about 50min., bread & caramel didn’t burn and it was completely cooked through. Secondly, I made mine with sourdough starter instead of yeast because I’m on a sourdough kick right now. Turned out great, used 1/4c. less milk, 1c. starter, same amount of everything else. Rose overnight (1st rise), did all the other steps in the morning. And lastly, I had too much leftover butter & cinnamon sugar from the 1st coating, so just added the rest of no. 1 to the 2nd coating and poured all of it over my bread before baking.
This was delicious. The bread is great. My only problem is the bottom- which becomes the top ended up being a little soggy. My wife didn’t mind cuz she felt it was almost Carmel puddingish, but I prefer it when it caramalizes. I didn’t want to cook any longer because I didn’t want the top to overcook. Any suggestions to get that nice sugary sticky caramelized bottom?
Love Sally’s recipes BUT this caused a fire in my oven. The buttery sugary topping overflowed and burned so badly…smoke…fire…etc. It didn’t seep down through the dough, so it had no where to go because the dough rose to the level of the bundt pan. I’m sure it would have been delicious.
This happend too me as well didn’t cause a fire and still turned out good but definitely was burning at bottom of oven and smoke was thick in the house.
You likely used a pan that was too small. The recipe states the side of the pan you should use. Also, if you watch your baked goods, as you should when making a new recipe, a fire would never have a chance to start.
Hot Tip for OVERNIGHT! You can do this recipe through step 9 (don’t turn on the oven… 😉 ), cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. I pulled the bread out about 2 hours before I wanted to bake it to take the chill away, and then baked it at 350 for about 40 minutes. I baked it on a rack on the bottom third of the oven. It came out perfectly! Who wants to roll balls of dough in cinnamon sugar on Christmas morning? Not me!! Recipe is solid. Delicious fluffy bread with gooey cinnamon sugar. Love the brown sugar sauce step… don’t skip it. It adds some complexity to the sweetness.
Sally- thank you so much for the wonderful Monkey Bread recipe, it was outstanding. My daughter and I assembled it the night before and baked it Christmas morning. It was a huge hit. It will be our new Christmas tradition.
I made your monkey bread with caramel sauce and it was delicious but now I can’t seem to find that version of it on here. Am I missing it?
Hi Natalie, send us an email at sally@sallysbakingaddiction.com and we’ll be happy to send it to you.
Can’t wait to make this! Would it be possible to prepare through step 7 and place the shaped dough in the fridge overnight?
Hi Lainey, you can cover assembled/shaped bread tightly and place it overnight in the fridge, then bake in the morning!
Have you ever considered doing a savory monkey bread and do you have any recommendations?
Hi Jen, we haven’t tried a savory version, but you can certainly do some experimenting! You can reduce the sugar in the dough. We recommend 2 Tablespoons (halve the amount listed).
I don’t own a Bundt pan. Can I bake this in a regular cake pan or should I just buy a Bundt pan?
Hi Kayla, you can use a loaf pan if you have one – simply layer the dough balls in a 9×5 pan. You’ll have enough for two loaves. You could also try placing a single layer of the dough balls in a 9×13 but you might have some leftover. We’re unsure of the exact bake time for either. Happy baking!
Can I use frozen bread dough?
Hi Doris, we can’t see why not – let us know if you give it a try.
Hi Sally, loving so many recipes I have tried. I want to make the monkey bread as gifts. Do you think it will do well in the mini Bundt disposables and what would be approximate bake time? Thanks so much!
Hi Debbie, we can’t see why not! We’re unsure of the exact bake time, but keep a close eye on it.
Could I use whole wheat flour? What adjustments would I need to make?
Hi Kristen! Whole wheat flour would yield dry and dense monkey bread. You could try replacing just some of the flour with whole wheat to see how it goes.