Monkeying Around

We had a dinner party tonight with four of our regular playgroup friends (the ones who met on Mondays over the summer) coming over to keep us company because Mama was working late. Preparations started this morning before school when I put the minestrone in the slow cooker. Sis helped pour in the broth and stir things around. She was very concerned that I was going to do other cooking while she was at school but I told her that our friends were bringing the rest. She apparently talked about the dinner party--and the friends bringing everything else!--all through school (one of her classmates is in the playgroup with us). I'm just relieved she didn't invite the whole class!

When they got home, I had a surprise for them: I'd purchased a flat (i.e. not fluted) Bundt pan at the store, as well as fixings for Monkey Bread! Now, we'd never made the famous sugary-buttery pull-apart bread (which I now have discovered was probably made famous, and certainly perfected, by Texas's own Julia Child, Helen Corbitt, whose cookbook my mom once gave me), but we did have it at Mama Teacher's house once. And I thought it would be both a good rainy day activity and a nice treat for our friends.

And I was right on both counts: Sis and Bud loved rolling the quartered biscuit dough (alas, I did not make the dough from scratch. But I will next time) in the cinnamon-sugar and then especially enjoyed watching me pour the melted brown sugar-butter mixture on top of the dough balls. I mean, really, what's not to like? The bread was ready just as people showed up and we all tore into it right away. I think it was only the serving of dinner and the presentation of triple-chip cookies (more on that if I can get the recipe) that kept us from eating the whole thing.

Then one of the moms told me she had made monkey bread with apple slices. Which got me thinking, what else can you do with monkey bread? I immediately thought of my orange biscuit recipe, which could so easily be translated into pull-apart form. And so I went looking all over the internet for variations. And this is pretty much what I discovered: the exact dough recipes (when a variety of pre-made biscuit doughs aren't being used) vary some, as does the ratio of butter to sugar, but the result seems pretty much the same, and the add-ins are endless, from chocolate to apples to marmalade/other jams to bananas to blueberries to raisins/nuts to maple syrup, etc etc etc (plus the whole arena of savory breads, which interested me tonight not at all). I found whole wheat doughs, bread machine doughs, and a list of different pre-made biscuits far beyond the familiar Grands buttermilk. (For a variety of recipes, see Recipezaar or Allrecipes. For an intro, see the LATimes article).

And so, I imagine it's not the last you've heard of this monkey business.

-=-=-=-=-

Mama Teacher's Monkey Bread

1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cans (16.3 oz each) refrigerated buttermilk biscuits
1/2 cup chopped walnuts, if desired
1/2 cup raisins, if desired
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup butter or margarine, melted

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Lightly grease 12-cup fluted tube pan. 2. In large plastic food-storage bag, mix sugar and cinnamon. Separate dough into 16 biscuits; cut each into quarters. Shake in bag to coat. Arrange in pan, adding walnuts and raisins among the biscuit pieces. 3. Mix brown sugar and butter; pour over biscuit pieces. 4. Bake 28 to 32 minutes or until golden brown and no longer doughy in center. Cool in pan 10 minutes. Turn upside down onto serving plate; pull apart to serve. Serve warm.

Pillsbury website