Product Review - Monkey Bread

This is my review of the King Arthur boxed mix for Monkey bread.

If you have not heard of Monkey Bread, it is a delicious creation where cut-up refrigerated dough is rolled in cinnamon sugar, topped with butter and brown sugar, and then baked in a Bundt pan. The recipe is a family favorite, my mom first made this for me when I was in college, and I have been making it ever since. If you follow my blog you know I am always singing the praises of the Pillsbury dough, Pillsbury biscuits are traditionally used to make Monkey Bread and I love the recipe I have as is.

However my hubby got me this boxed mix from Williams-Sonoma knowing how I love Williams-Sonoma cake mixes, and thought it would be fun to make with the girls.

This mix has you make the dough totally from scratch and includes a packet of yeast. I had never used yeast before this, I don't know much about it and frankly I was intimidated by it. To me yeast is for professional bread bakers, and I use Pillsbury or buy bread from a bakery, but I decided to be brave and try it.

Overall this was really labor intensive to make. Don't wake up in the morning and think you are going to bang this out in time for breakfast or even a mid-morning snack. With all the many steps, and the time waiting for the dough to rise, it is hours from start to finish. There are instructions how to make the dough the night before, which I recommended if you do want to eat it in the morning.

For all my worrying, the yeast part was really quite simple, and it was kinda cool to check on my dough and see that it was indeed rising (I did it right!). I actually gave it one more hour past the time indicated on the box, the ambient temperature in my work area may have been a factor, not sure, but I went by size, not time.

The end result bread came out great, cooked well, and tasted delicious. The topping was perfect, I was very pleased (should be after all that work!), and the kids loved it too.

Honestly I would probably not make this again, while the flavor was good, it was not leaps and bounds above the traditional recipe enough to warrant all the added steps and time. For me the whole idea behind using refrigerated dough is that it is quicker and easier, and tastes just as good, so I will probably stick with my good old Pillsbury. But overall it was a success. This mix, given together with a Bundt pan or a cake stand would make a very nice gift.