Monkey Bread

When I was little my  mother used Bridgeford Rolls from the supermarket freezer section to make small buttery rolls nicknamed ‘Monkey Bread’.  To this day those rolls are a staple at our Thanksgiving dinner every year.  They take all afternoon and are essentially just rolls cut in half, dipped in melted butter and left to rise throughout the afternoon, but they are delicious.  Simply put: there are never any leftovers.

The Bridgeford Rolls however no longer have that simple roll on their packaging and have since replaced their original “Monkey Bread'” recipe with a Monkey Bread that is of the more traditional kind, rolls dipped in butter, rolled in cinnamon and sugar and combined in one fashion or another with butterscotch pudding.  I have tried the Bridgeford Monkey Bread but was unimpressed when all the hard work led to a sweet roll that I thought was lacking in some fundamental way.

But then a couple of weeks ago I came across a recipe that called for refrigerated biscuit dough in place of frozen rolls.  I was instantly interested, and at my next grocery excursion picked up several types and brands of biscuit dough.  You see, we don’t generally do refrigerated biscuits around here and I was unsure which to go with when presented with so many options at the local market.  I went with both the store brand original and the Pillsbury Buttermilk for variety.  Then I came home and experimented six times over the next two weeks.  I learned that with this bread, that simple was synonymous with unsurpassable.  I also, no surprise here, gained three pounds.  But now I have perfected them.  No need to thank me.  Just try them for yourself, you won’t be disappointed.

This recipe is scrumptious but it also comes together in as little as 30 minutes from start to finish, which makes it even better.  To save your forearms from scrubbing duty turn the bread out onto aluminum foil immediately after baking and rinse your pan.

Monkey Bread

Ingredients

2 pkgs. refrigerated biscuit dough

2/3 cup sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon

1/2 cup chopped pecans.

1/3 cup butter

2/3 cup brown sugar

 

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350*F.  Spray 9 inch round cake pan.  Combine sugar and cinnamon in a gallon size Ziploc bag.
2. Open packages or biscuits and quarter them.
3. Taking about 8-10 of them at a time, drop them into the cinnamon mixture and shake vigorously to coat.  Drop them in greased pan.  Repeat until all of the biscuit dough is coated.
4. Sprinkle with chopped pecans.
5. Melt the butter in a small saucepan and add the brown sugar.  Bring to a boil and pour over the rolls.
6. Bake in preheated oven for 20 minutes.  Turn onto aluminum foil and enjoy.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

I have been buying a lot of bananas lately. Being that we have toddlers in the house and that we are runners we go through bananas before they are ever ripe enough to be truly warranted for a good quick bread or other baked goods. Buying more bananas than I think we need has only increased the number of banana sundae’s the spouse eats or uses for smoothies. So I started buying even more. Finally, I had three black and mushy (read: beautiful) bananas to use for a recipe. At first I was going to make more Banana Bread Cookie’s, but then I decided I wanted to try out something new. Something with a bit of chocolate in it. Chocolate Banana Bread with Chocolate Chips seemed like just the thing.

I was a bit nervous about this bread to be honest. The last few things I have made with cocoa haven’t turned out so hot. They have actually been quite bad. So bad in fact, that I haven’t even posted about the recipes because they were so bad that there was little more that needed to be said. I was so skeptical of this bread and the changes I made in the original recipe, that I kept convincing myself it was a failure before it was cool enough to try.

I had a small bite the night I made it when I snapped this picture. It was fine, not bad. However, the next day when I was whipping up some appetizers for a book group I snuck another piece. It was quite good. So I snuck another. Before I knew it I had snuck four pieces with a sizable amount of the loaf gone, making it seem a lot less sneaky and a lot more noticeable. I couldn’t help it. It’s that good.

Chocolate Chocolate-Chip Banana Bread

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter, softened

1 cup white sugar

2 eggs

3 ripe bananas, mashed

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 tablespoons unsweetened baking cocoa

1/2 cup light sour cream

2/3 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350*. Lightly grease one 9x5 load pan.
2. In large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar together. Add eggs, bananas, and vanilla; mix well. Sift in flour, baking soda and cocoa. Beat in sour cream. Stir in chocolate chips.
3. Pour into prepared pan and bake 60 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean. Cool on wire rack. remove from pan and cool completely.

Pineapple Banana Birthday Loaf

Tuesday morning I got up with every intention of celebrating my children’s second birthday with pancakes or waffles or something else that falls in the extravagant category when compared to a handful of cereal and a cup of milk. Unfortunately, they woke up too early to let me get a head start and were ready for cereal before I was ready to sift flour so I decided then and there that I would create a recipe just for them incorporating things I know they love, bananas, pineapple and bread.

I make, shall I dare to say, too much quick bread around here, and I have a basic knowledge of what goes in them so I sat down and jotted down some ideas for a tropical themed bread and worked out a recipe to try. As I was putting the bread together I made a few changes as I saw the batter form and having now tried it I think I would make one more change but overall I thought this bread was a huge success. The children, who got to try it following their lunch, loved it. They each had two slices for lunch and then again for breakfast the next morning. By Thursday the two loaves the batter had made were all gone.

Pineapple Banana Birthday Loaf

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup Fat Free Buttermilk

3 eggs

1 cup white sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

2/3 cup applesauce

2/3 cup vegetable oil

1 tablespoon vanilla

1/2 cup crushed pineapple

1/4 cup pineapple juice

1 cup coconut

4 bananas (very, very ripe and mashed)

1 overflowing cup of walnuts

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease two loaf pans generously.

2. Combine flours, soda, salt, cinnamon. Set aside.

3. Combine sugars, applesauce and oil using an electric mixer. Add eggs, buttermilk, vanilla, bananas, pineapple and juice.

4. Combine flour mixture with wet ingredients by hand. Add coconut and walnuts.

5. Pour into prepared loaf pans and bake 55-60 minutes rotating halfway through.

One thing I decided in making this bread was to mix applesauce and oil. Since having a baby four months ago I have been making small changes to my baking. Applesauce has been the biggest change and I implore you to give it a try in your next quick bread recipe. Sometimes I substitute all the oil for applesauce and other times just some of the oil. With this recipe I decided to add applesauce and oil to equal 1 1/3 cup. First I added this:

My applesauce of choice, Mott's No Sugar Added All Natural applesauce. I have this stuff stashed throughout my pantry. I added a little more than 2/3 applesauce and then poured oil in to equal 1 1/3 cups.
I then creamed the wet ingredients; Buttermilk, eggs, sugars, applesauce, oil, vanilla and my secret ingredient, pineapple juice and bananas with my electric mixer. In a separate bowl I combined the flours, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Not wanting to over mix I combined the wet and dry ingredients by hand. I have learned that a dense quick bread is the result of overmixing so I try and be very gentle with my breads.

Ah, yum, coconut. To think there was once a day when I refused the stuff.
This bread was made with a half a cup of crushed pinapple and a half a cup of pineapple juice. I think the next time I make this bread I will reduce the juice to a quarter of a cup. The flavor wasn't that strong and I think it would make for a little less moist of a bread.
I like to heavily grease my pans. I hate when things stick.
So with the oven preheated, the pans greased and the wet and dry ingredients combined I added the coconut and a lot (1 overflowing cup) of walnuts to the batter.I baked the loaves for 25 minutes and then rotated them and baked them for another 30 minutes. I cut into one of them right away (it was after lunch and wanted the children to be able to try it before nap) and I think this was a mistake. The second loaf wasn't cut until the next morning and it tasted not so moist and quite delicious. Needless to say both loaves were gone in two days.