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. 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. Love chocolate? Try drizzling the chocolate sauce from my dessert nachos on top!
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 | Whisk | Glass Mixing Bowls | 10-12 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.
Delicious but over the top! Copious amounts of sugar. I skipped the icing based on other reviews, but next time I’ll half the sugar and glaze too. I love sweets and could only eat a few bites.
I’m not sure why but my dough never rose to the same level as the pictures… there wasn’t a lot of air to push down and it didn’t change much in the second rise either. It was labor intensive so I went ahead and baked, and it puffed right up and turned out beautifully!
Great recipe, very good texture, rich and delicious enough with out the icing which we skipped
Love this recipe. I follow it exact except I half it. I bake in a large bread loaf pan. Mine doesn’t bubble over. Topping really good but not even needed!
I hate leaving a bad review because I usually love all your recipes but this was a miss. Maybe it needed more flour or kneading but the dough was very loose and sticky. Once it came out of the oven the bread was crumbly and dry. Not worth making or eating; ended up throwing most of it away.
Can you use heavy whipping cream instead of whole milk? Can’t have whole milk
Hi Tammy, We don’t suggest heavy cream in this yeasted dough. Milk is ideal.
Made this for the second year in a row for Christmas morning and it was an absolute hit!! Made the dough night before (started around 7pm), did the first rise and prepped Bundt pan thru step 7 and covered tightly in fridge overnight. Morning of I pulled straight out and did the coating and put in the oven. Did not wait a couple hrs for another rise and it turned out perfect! I didn’t do the full drizzle of icing as it didn’t need it and this mama was tired from Christmas activities this was totally worth the extra effort in making the dough and not using canned biscuits. Wonderful recipe!
Needed troubleshooting pointers. I stuck to the recipe, but the dough was not pulling away from the sides of the bowl after the allotted time or needing. I had to keep adding flour until the dough pulled away. By that time I had over, mixed it, and the monkey bread was tough. In my opinion, the brown sugar mixture poured on top of the dough before baking is not necessary, and it fell to the bottom of the oven and caused a lot of smoke in our house. It was a very sugary dessert, wished I hadn’t gotten up three hours early on Christmas morning to make it. Some recipes indicate that you may need another cup or so of flour while mixing to get the results.
I love your recipes! If I have a choice I chose Sally!
I made the monkey bread for Christmas. It was great but while the overnight instructions were clear but took far too long. Belatedly I looked back in your comment “archives”. Apparently you changed your overnight instructions. I surely wished I had done it the old way!
I wonder why you changed the instructions…
Hi Ann, I don’t think the overnight instructions changed. I’m looking back and see all of the instructions were rewritten in a clearer format from the original publish date in 2014.
Worth the effort and way better than using canned biscuit dough! It made so much though, has anyone tried
freezing the dough after baking with success? Thanks for the great recipe!
Hi Samantha, freezing the baked monkey bread shouldn’t be a problem. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and then reheat in the morning to your liking. We’re so glad you enjoyed this monkey bread!
I am about to make this recipe, but I am wondering if I can freeze the dough balls, with the brown sugar then thaw overnight/during the day, and drizzle with the butter and then bake as per directions?
Hi Melanie! You can freeze the dough balls without the coating (it will get wet/runny if you freeze and thaw them with it on). See recipe notes for details!
Absolutely delicious but with 20 minutes to bake, the brown sugar coating overflowed the bundt pan, causing a sugar/butter fire in the bottom of my oven! Luckily I was in the kitchen and saw the flames so was able to put it out (put a large metal pot lid over the burning drips) Set off a very loud fire alarm in my apartment, lots of smoke, but no damage luckily. Next time I’d skip the coating entirely!
Thanks for sharing your experience, Carolyn. It’s helpful for other readers. Was your Bundt pan large enough?
This recipe is the real thing. It has already found its way into my list of absolute, must-make, must-recommend-to-others recipe. That said, I did make a few minor tweaks. First and foremost, I added a half cup of chopped walnuts, sprinkling them into the pan as I added layers of balls. At the time it seemed like a bit much but now that it’s baked I think it could use a few more. Second, I did cut back some on the sugar. I had granulated sugar/cinnamon mix left over, despite coating the balls as liberally as possible. I mixed that with the leftover butter and poured it on top. In recognizance of this I reduced the amount of brown sugar in the pour over sauce slightly, and I did not make the icing. Looks gorgeous in the pictures but I think it is a bit over the top sweetness wise. But hey all that’s just me. If you are on the fence about making this recipe because it is more complex than some others, let me reassure you, it’s worth every minute and then some and it’s really not all that involved.
Can this be prepared through the first rise, shaping/coating then leave in the pan overnight until morning to bake?
Hi Lisa, absolutely. See the recipe notes for overnight instructions.
I have been making this recipe for about 4 yrs now and always meant to comment but never did. My family loves it, i make sure each dough ball is thoroughly coated and dark brown sugar makes a huge difference don’t settle for anything less. Great job, love it, it’s a tradition in my house.
I’ve made this recipe before and loved it! Is it possible to use pizza dough in place of the dough you’re using? I’m making pizza tonight and it would save me so much time. Thanks!
Hi Elsie, I’m sure that would be fine!
What other baking pans can be used? I don’t own a bundt pan yet!
Hi Jade! We haven’t tested it but you could try placing a single layer of the dough balls in a 9×13 but you might have some leftover. You can also use a loaf pan- simply layer the dough balls in a 9×5 pan. You’ll have enough for two loaves. We are unsure of the exact bake time for either. Happy baking!
This recipe looks awesome! Do you think it would work if I halved it and made it in a smaller pan. I want to make it for Christmas morning but it will only be my husband and I.
Hi Jenny, You can halve the recipe for a loaf pan. The bake time will be shorter when using smaller pans.
The oven temp needs to be put at the beginning of the recipe not buried in a random paragraph.
Thanks for your feedback. You don’t want to preheat the oven before tyou make the dough, and before both rises.
I MADE TWO YESTERDAY. ONE FOR MY SON’S 35TH BIRTHDAY AND 0NE FOR THE REST OF THE FAMILY SO THERE WAS NO FIGHTING. LOL. MY GRANDSON HAD A HUGE PIECE AND SAID IT WAS SOOOOOO GOOOD!! THANK YOU SO MUCHFOR THIS RECIPE. I MAKE IT EVERY YEAR FOR MY SON.
I had doubts before the dough rose. Initially the dough was super sticky after kneading with the dough hook. I kneaded it for another two minutes on the counter and incorporated a little more flour. After the rise it was lovely and smooth. After baking it this monkey bread recipe was the best my family and I have ever made. Thank you so much. We are saving this one to our favorites. Delicious and tender.
Wow! I made this yesterday and it turned out great! Glad I read the comments beforehand and used a foil lined pan underneath to catch the overflow- whew! The recipe made a lot! Great leftover and Hubs loves it! Thanks Sally! Another win!
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