Yesterday I mentioned making monkey bread with all four of my monkeys in the kitchen. While there were times of craziness when we were putting this together…really, really we did have fun! (All of us…even me.)
I wanted to share this recipe with you, as it is a healthy (uses only whole wheat flour and unprocessed sugars), yummy treat that is fun to make with your kids. It does take a bit of time to make, but you do it in stages…and don’t forget about the fact that it is…
YUMMY!!
I simply used my Honey Whole Wheat Bread recipe…but instead of forming loaves as normal…we made it into this wonderful, sweet cinnamon pull apart bread for our breakfast.
Here’s the recipe and the “how to”:
6 cups whole wheat flour, divided
1 ¾ cups warm water, divided
1/3 cup honey
1 pkg. yeast
1 t. salt
3 T. melted butter
1. Mix 3 cups of whole wheat flour with 1 ½ cups of warm water in a large glass bowl. Allow this to sit for about 30 minutes. This will break down the gluten and help the bread to rise better.
2. Meanwhile, in a small bowl mix together ¼ cup water, yeast and honey. Allow this to sit for about 10 minutes, or until the yeast is activated and mixture becomes bubbly.
3. Add salt, melted butter and yeast mixture to the flour and water mixture. Gradually add the remaining three cups of flour and stir well.
4. As the dough becomes harder to stir, pour it out onto a clean counter and begin to knead the dough. Add a little flour if needed to keep it from sticking. Knead the dough for 5-10 minutes.
5. Place the ball of dough back into the bowl and cover it with a cloth. Allow the dough to rise for one hour, or until it has doubled in size.
6. Using a floured hand, pull the dough out of the bowl onto the counter. Knead for just a minute or two until the air bubbles are gone.
7. Melt one stick of butter.
8. In a medium bowl, mix together 1 cup rapadura and 3 t. cinnamon.
9. Pull off small fits of dough and roll them around in your hands to form a ball.
10. Dip the ball of dough into the melted butter, then roll it around in the cinnamon/rapadura mixture.
11. Place the covered ball into a buttered bread pan or angel food cake pan.
12. Continue to dip bits of dough in butter and cinnamon/rapadura. Fill pan ½ full. You should be able to make two pans.
13. Allow the dough to rise for about 30 minutes.
14. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 45 minutes.
Here are a few picture highlights of our Monkey Business:
Once the dough had risen and needed to be punched down…EVERYONE wanted to be a part of that. I mean…it’s permission to punch something. What little boy doesn’t want THAT?!
Asa got to knead the dough…and I’m not sure what Justus and Malachi are licking off their fingers there…flour? Okay you two…wash your hands…again …
Not to be outdone by the biggest brother, Justus and Elias needed to knead too.
Asa got the butter melting on the stove.
Justus smeared butter all over the bread pans.
Malachi stirred up the rapadura and cinnamon mixture.
And then EVERYONE got to pull off balls of dough and do the fun rolling and dipping and making ooey-gooey bread part.
Ah, the beautiful loaves, rising and almost ready to go into the oven.
Monkey bread…YUM! Can’t you just smell it?!
The next morning, I rewarmed it a little and we had it with milk for breakfast. When the boys woke up smelling it…they jumped out of bed and ran down…
All the way down the stairs…I was hearing monkey noises, “Ooo Ooo…Aah…Aah..” in high pitched tones and looked over to see four monkeys making their way into the kitchen. And that is how my monkey bread morning began…
(At least they didn’t start picking bugs off of each other and eating them…my monkey’s are slightly tamer than that…)
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