This is a really ugly photo of a wonderful cake. Seriously, it’s so good it has been massacred by its fans. I have no idea why this cake is called “Monkey Bread” – oh wait, I could look it up. Wikipedia says the origin of the name is not certain, but it may have been the cake’s resemblance to the Monkey Puzzle Tree, an ancient conifer that evolved spiky leaves to prevent the dinosaurs from eating it before it grew out of range. The leaves are so sharp that the French name for the tree is “Monkey’s Despair”. Monkeys are not native anywhere in the range of the tree, however, so we’ll let this one go as “uncertain origin”. I love the interwebs. Here is the recipe. Make it for dinner-desert and birthdays for those under 12 and over 70. Not such a hit at bake sales and tea parties.
You will need:
1/2 C Brown Sugar
* 2 sticks of butter (1 cup)
* Bundt Cake Pan
* 2 – 3 tsp Cinnamon
2 recipes of your favorite buttermilk biscuits. Hint – if you’re doing this with children, or at camp, or even without any excuse what-so-ever, you can use three cans of those biscuits from the dairy case at the grocery store. Get the regular, non-flaky kind or they won’t fit in the bundt pan. And also, no one will be able to tell. There’s a reason they engineer this stuff – those are pretty good biscuits in the tube.
1 C sugar
1 pint blueberries or raspberries, or 1 C raisins
Make the biscuit dough (or pop the tube – you know you want to). Cut the biscuits in to quarters. Put them in a plastic bag with the cup of white sugar and 2 (I use 3) tsp cinnamon and roll them around until coated. Pile the quarters in the bundt pan – try to lever the pieces up the sides and leave a tunnel in the middle for the fruit. Scatter the fruit and add the remaining pieces to cover. I wish I’d taken some pictures during the process, but I had a load of laundry in, dinner at Aunt Y’s later in the day, weeds growing as I watched, you know the drill.
Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the brown sugar, cook until “married”, as it says in my mother-in-law’s Joy of Cooking. Basically, the mixture will turn tan and bubbly. Don’t let it get too sticky, we’re not making candy here. Pour it over the biscuit pieces and fruit. Note that I didn’t mention greasing the bundt pan – I’ve never had this cake stick to any pan, no matter how fancy the shape. The dough is just no match for the half-tonne of butter we just poured over it.
Bake at 350 for about 40 minutes until dark and shiny on top. Let it cool 15 – 20 minutes before you turn it out on to a generous plate – there will be a little extra sauce. Serve right then or store at room temperature for a day – I guarantee you won’t have it hanging around for longer than that. I like to serve this with extra fruit and whipped cream, because I hate my arteries. Wonderful. Still no idea why they call it Monkey Bread.
I always figured it was because you pull it apart with your fingers (opposable thumbs).
And someone else has commented that she has never seen this recipe with fruit – it would be too messy to eat with the fingers. Don’t know where my family came up with the variation, but I’ve never made it plain. . . and we always cut it and ate it like a regular cake. The name makes more sense your way!
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