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.
You can have monkey bread for breakfast, brunch, 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 published a caramel monkey bread recipe several years ago and followed up with this traditional recipe. 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.
- 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; 70g) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 5 cups (625g) all-purpose flour (spoon & 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 rubber 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 rubber spatula. It will take a bit of arm muscle!*
- Knead the dough: Keep the dough in the mixer and beat for an additional 2 minutes or knead by hand on a lightly floured surface for 2 minutes.
- 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.
- 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.
Keywords: cinnamon rolls, breakfast
This post is sponsored by Red Star Yeast.
Could this be made in muffin cups?
Absolutely! The bake time will be shorter.
This is the best thing I have ever baked!
My three year-old son and I were inspired to make pull-apart bread from a recipe on the side of a Pillsbury biscuit can. Thankfully, the biscuits had expired and we were forced to search for a homemade recipe because it lead us to your recipe! In the years before I had my son I was venturing into the world of baking and lost touch after he was born. Making this recipe yesterday has reinvigorated the inspiration. Thank you!
And thank you for an amazing recipe! It takes all our restraint to not eat it all at once!
I don’t know what I did wrong but this didn’t turn out for me at all. Maybe bad yeast? My dough was very hard, never rose, and once baked it didn’t stick together so when I flipped it there were 45 very dense balls laying in a heap. Lol but also sad. Was very eager to eat this.
Made this this morning – delicious! And bonus points for being easy and a great recipe to make with kiddos.
Made this morning for my son’s birthday breakfast. Made the dough (doubled for 12 children) rolled out flat 1/4″ on floured surface cut into 1″ squares (pizza cutter) tossed into greased 9×13 pan. Let rise 30 minutes (crunched for time) melted 2 sticks butter, poured over dough squares, mixed brown sugar & cinnamon poured over. Baked 15 minutes, tossed with tongs to coat better, baked 20 minutes more. Turned over onto sheet pan, poured confectioners glaze over the top. All the kids ate it and loved it !!! Will make again ♡ wonderful recipe. Thank you Sally !
I followed this recipe exactly and it is DELICIOUS! My children BEG me to make this. I’m making it for the second time tonight– to cheer us through our Winter Blues.
Thank you for this recipe! It’s wonderful!
Great recipe! I made this over Christmas and made the dough around 8pm (doubled recipe) and left covered until 11pm. It had risen well to double the size. I rolled and coated the balls and left in the fridge overnight in the bundt pans.the next morning took them out which they had again risen and then put them in the oven for 35 mins. Some of the butter/sugar spilled over the side, other than that it cooked perfectly, looked beautiful and was delicious. I will probably cut back a little on the sugar, it was a tad too sweet. Thanks for a great recipe!!!
If I don’t use Red Star yeast, do I still need to let it rise for 45 min. after rolling the dough into balls? I will be in a bit of a time crunch the morning I make it and don’t want to have to waste any time letting it rise. Thank you.
Yes, still let it rise for 45 minutes 🙂
I’d like to incorporate pecans into my monkey bread. Any advice on how to do that?
As you arrange the balls of dough into the pan, simply layer in some chopped pecans between them. Yum!
I made these this morning for a birthday for one of the guys at work. They are LOSING THEIR MINDS and requesting more tomorrow.
Made this for breakfast, so good!!!
Absolutely wonderful! I added some apples inside, and let it cook 15 minutes more. Heavenly delicious.
HI Sally!
I tried this yesterday/today and it tastes really really yummy!
The only thing that didn’t work is that not all the dough balls stuck together.. some did but not all. I used the right amount of melted butter (1/4 C) and brown sugar and am wondering if I didn’t pour that over the balls well enough and spread it around. I used a tube pan and the balls came all the way to the top after the 2nd rise.
I read through all the comments but didn’t find anyone talking about the bread balls coming unstuck.
Help? Not sure what I need to do differently next time. There is definitely going to be many next times because everyone here loved it!
PS I’ve had so much fun baking recipes from your blog these last few months. Thanks so much!
Viv, maybe the butter mixture didn’t seep down in between all the crevices? What do you think about maybe using a little more of the melted butter to pour overtop?
Hi Sally. Thanks! I’ll try that.. a bit more of the melted butter. The first try is almost all gone and I have requests to make it again today for tomorrow’s breakfast!
HI Sally.. I did it! I did it! So very pleased. It was just as yummy as the first time but this time it all stayed stuck together 🙂 Thanks for your advice!
This came out amazing. It was a hit at my dinner party and tasted so yummy. I did have to add water in my brown sugar mixture as it wasn’t runny enough, but the end result was fabulous and looks amazing
I tried this tonight had the dough rise for 8hrs in the fridge. Im not sure what I did wrong. But while rising in the fridge, it had some water droplets in it. When I took it out I just pressed it and started making the balls. I didnt let it rise again since ive used the same yeast brand. But the bread turned out cakey not bread like. The yeast I also pungent on the bread. Help!
Oh. My. Oh. My. Thank you thank you thank you. My daughter wanted this for Christmas breakfast.. it was a hit! Turned out beautiful and was easy to make.
i am a beginner at this “baking stuff” and I couldn’t believe how your recipe turned out for me.. fantastic!! I love the way you broke down the recipe with each step. Thank you so much for sharing this… I am feeling a little more daring now so I think I will try something else of yours.. Thanks Sally!!
Hi Sally! I love money bread, but it’s a little messy for my little ones to share with their friends. Can I make it into monkey muffins? How long should i bake it for? Thanks! Michelle
Absolutely! I’m unsure of the bake time though. Use your best judgement to determine their doneness.
I just put the Monkey Bread in the oven and it smells amazing! Just in case anyone wants to know I’m fourteen and yeast dough is kind of intimidating but this dough was really easy. I thought it wouldn’t fill my bunt pan all the way but it more than filled it I needed to put it on another pan so it wouldn’t drip in the oven. Thank you so much for this recipe and all you other recipes I can’t wait to eat this!
Hi Sally,
My sister and I were so excited to make this recipe but after following the recipe to a T 3 times, it still wouldn’t cook completely through??? It stayed doughy inside? What are we doing wrong? I live in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and we don’t have your brand of yeast. We are desperate to eat this fully cooked?
Hi Karina! The yeast isn’t the issue. I would simply bake the monkey bread for longer. If the top (which is the bottom!) is getting too brown too quickly, cover the whole thing loosely with aluminum foil as it bakes.
Just made this with my daughter. WOW! This is amazing. I made a cream cheese frosting instead that is closer to Cinnabon, but wow thanks for posting.
I just made this for the first time and it was amazing!! My only problem was it didn’t bake all the way through. (I set it for 35 minuets.) I took off the top pieces because I was too impatient and wanted to taste the yumminess, and then baked it for another ten minuets. How would I make sure it’s baked all the way through without picking pieces off in the future??
So happy you like it Alison! Usually I can tell by the top (which is the bottom!) which turns a light golden brown when it is nearly done.
I just made this today and it was sooo good my whole family loved it , my nephews were so happy and asked me to make this for them everytime they come over , I had to add about 1/2 a cup of flour because the dough was too sticky and I wasn’t able to knead it , left it for 10 hours in the fridge because the electricity got cut off ,I made 48 balls out of it and felt they were a little too big and they didn’t turn out like yours, i think my pan was a little bit smaller than yours and they didn’t stick together when I turned them over do you have any idea why ?
thank you so much for this delicious recipe , I’ve never had it before and it turned out to be so good !
This recipe is seriously delicious!!! I get requests for it all the time from my boys (our 3 year old loves rolling the balls in the butter and sugar then dropping them in the pan!) I have pointed lots of friends in direction of this recipe!! Thank you, off to make another one now! x
This was amazing. Thank you so much for sharing!
Made this with my daughter and it was a hit! The whole family absolutely loved it and it was way better than the store bought shortcut. Thanks for another fabulous recipe!!
Oh my gosh! I made this today. Sooooooo good. They are perfection. My only trouble was not anticipating how much they would rise. I should have used a bigger bundt pan. Thank you for the recipe!
My husband and I are currently making this for tomorrow morning. We don’t have the pan the recipe calls for. What do you think will happen if we use a 13×9 glass pan? Can’t wait to try it! The dough is in the fridge!!!
You really need a Bundt pan that will hold 10 or more cups. There will likely be too much dough for your 9×13 pan. Maybe don’t use all the dough?
Sally, this looks soooo tasty! Can’t wait to try this! Question…can I use this in the various savory monkey bread recipes I seem to see everywhere?
Definitely! It’s a good “base” dough for any monkey bread recipe.