Monkey Bread - made June 11, 2016 (original hack)
I love all the décor associated with 4
th of
July. Not only do they prominently feature the American flag but I just like
the red, white and blue, the stars and stripes, the whole thing. So it’s a
surprise that I don’t have more Independence Day “stuff”. I have a serving bowl
my sister gave me awhile back but that’s it. Until I fell for the Sur la Table
catalog not too long ago and ended up buying a set of 4 stars and stripes
ramekins. I love ramekins and have too many. But *cough* these were on sale and
piffle on “too many”.
 |
| Popping out of the top |
 |
| Messy |
Usually I like to bake apple cobblers and lava cakes in
ramekins but apples are best in the fall and lava cakes don’t really scream 4
th
of July to me (okay, they scream “year round” to me) so I thought I’d try a
different dessert altogether.
Now you have to understand that sometimes the baking
visions in my head don’t match the baking reality that comes out of my oven.
Such is the case here. My original concept was to make 1 ramekin of Nutella
monkey bread and 1 of Cookie Butter monkey bread. Brilliant, right? I was going
to fill each piece of bread dough with either Nutella or cookie butter, dip in
butter, roll in cinnamon sugar, arrange in ramekins, pipe extra Nutella over
the Nutella-stuffed dough and cookie butter over the cookie butter-stuffed
dough, bake to goodness then drizzle more Nutella or cookie butter over the
appropriate ramekins.
 |
| After I took the top layer off and baked the rest |
I stand by my vision but I’m afraid my execution left
something to be desired. For one thing, I underestimated the rise and puff of
the dough pieces as they baked so I overstuffed the poor little ramekins and
the pieces of the top layer popped out during baking. My oven thanks me for the
mess I made in it. Because of the overstuffing, the melted, baking butter also
leaked over the sides of the ramekins and dripped onto my oven floor. The
bottom layer of dough didn’t get a chance to bake as much as it should have
before the top layer was perfectly baked and a bit crunchy. To add further
insult to my baking injuries, neither the Nutella nor the cookie butter melted
into flowy goodness in the ramekins as I had envisioned they would. Instead
they baked to a more solid form because of the amount of time it took the dough
to bake. They didn’t burn but they weren’t the ooey gooey “glaze” I had
expected. The filling inside the dough balls remained fine but the additional
dollops I had put between and over the dough balls laughed at my attempt at
flowy.
So….much as I would’ve wished for a better outcome to
christen my new 4
th of July ramekins, the baked dough balls I did
manage to salvage were actually pretty tasty. I always say failures teach as
much as, if not more than, successes so for this one I learned it would to best to use
less dough (only fill ramekin 2/3 full, max), don’t pipe extra Nutella or
cookie butter before baking and instead, glaze the warm monkey bread with
either as soon as you take it out of the oven. There you have it - Happy Birthday, USA!
1 package Pillsbury Grands Biscuits (any biscuit dough will do - if you end up with too much dough, freeze the rest or bake as normal biscuits)
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
Nutella
Cookie Butter
4 large ramekins
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Lightly spray ramekins with nonstick cooking spray.
- Combine sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Have melted
butter in a separate bowl.
- Cut each biscuit into quarters. Roll out or stretch each
quarter slightly, place a teaspoon of Nutella or cookie butter filling in the
center, pinch the edges together to enclose the filling completely and roll
into a ball.
- Coat in melted butter then roll in cinnamon sugar mixture.
Arrange dough balls in even layer in ramekin, filling each ramekin no more than
2/3 full to allow room for the dough balls to expand as they bake.
- Bake until tops are golden. Drizzle melted Nutella (or
cookie butter) over top and serve warm.
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