If you want to get up to some flavorful antics in the kitchen, make monkey bread. With a little time and a powerful sweet tooth, you can get up close and personal with your baked goods and make a gooey, soft and sweet treat that's as effective as breakfast fare as it is after an evening meal.

What is Monkey Bread, Anyway?

Usually made with yeast bread, butter and cinnamon, monkey bread (also known as pull-apart bread) is like a cinnamon roll on steroids. Small sections of yeast dough are rolled into balls, dipped in butter and then rolled in a cinnamon and sugar mixture. Plopped together in a deep baking pan, they create merged puzzle pieces as they rise and bake. The dough expands, but never adheres to adjacent balls, making it easy to pull the resulting bread apart. Since each small section has been completely covered with sugar and rich butter, the entire dessert is interspersed with lots of gooey, sweet goodness. Some recipes use cinnamon, while others rely on brown sugar to create a caramel glaze. We prefer the cinnamon version.

Making Monkey or Pull-apart Bread

One of the nicest things about monkey bread is that your kids can do a lot of the work -- and start getting some valuable experience in the kitchen. This recipe will get you started, but it isn't the only option. If you're in a hurry, you can even make monkey bread with refrigerated bread or biscuit dough.

Monkey Bread Recipe

Dough

2 tablespoons butter

1 cup milk

1/4 cup water

1/4 cup mashed potato (unsalted)

1 egg

1/4 cup sugar (granulated)

3 1/4 cups flour

1 package rapid-rise yeast

2 teaspoons salt

Coating

8 tablespoons butter

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

2 tablespoons cinnamon

Monkey Bread Directions

Bread Machine

For fast results, prepare dough in your bread maker using the dough setting. The instructions for your machine will indicate whether you should add the wet or dry ingredients first. When you prep the mixture, make sure that the water temperature is between 105-110 degrees F and the egg and potato are at or near room temperature. (This will get a good yeast colony started quickly regardless of the prep option you choose. The dough should be allowed to rise once for around an hour in this step.)

By Hand

If you're preparing the dough by hand, combine the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl and add the wet ingredients slowly. Mix for 7 to 10 minutes. If you have a mixer with a dough hook attachment, it'll come in handy for this. Roll the mixture onto a floured surface and knead for three to five minutes. Lightly butter a mixing bowl and add the dough. Cover with a slightly dampened cloth, and set in a warm spot to rise for an hour.

Once the dough's had a chance to rise, place it on a floured surface and roll it into an eight inch square. Cut the square into 8 rows by 8 columns, creating a grid of squares. There should be around 60. This isn't rocket science. Close is good enough.

Grease a Bundt cake, monkey bread pan or other deep pan.

Combine the sugar and cinnamon for the coating (proportions above), and melt the butter in a separate bowl.

Roll each square of dough between your palms to form a ball, and then dip the ball in butter and roll it in the sugar mixture. Place the ball in the pan.

Once you (or your kids) have prepped all the balls and added them to the pan, set the prepared monkey bread dough in a warm spot to rise for an hour.

Bake at 350 degrees F in the middle rack of your oven for 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Monkey bread isn't pretty to look at, but it sure is tasty. If you want to make the bread look more appealing, drizzle it with a confectioner's sugar glaze made from a cup of confectioner's sugar to which you've added two tablespoons of milk.

Monkey bread is best served fresh and warm. The addition of the potato makes the bread wonderfully soft and fluffy.

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