Monkey bread is a sweet, sugary
American dish composed of biscuit dough, sugar, cinnamon, and a brown sugar and
butter glaze. It can be served as either a breakfast or a dessert.
Monkey bread is popular all across the country
nowadays, but it is a dish tied to the South that continues to have a strong
southern vibe. Simple to prepare and simple to eat, monkey bread epitomizes the
southern dish qualities of centering around common main ingredients, such as
dough, butter, and sugar, and of kinship and family. Monkey bread is meant to
be shared by a table of people. Monkey bread is not meant to be cut into slices
and served onto separate plates, but instead pulled apart with fingers piece by
piece in an extremely communal fashion.
The name monkey bread is a bit of a
mystery, but some historians claim that it arose from the combination of
“monkey food,” southern slang for snack food during the 1940’s, and jumble
bread.
This dish was widely popularized by
the Reagan Administration. President Ronald Reagan and First Lady Nancy Reagan
ate monkey bread during their Christmas dinners at home and then at the White
House. Their recipe is even featured in The
White House Family Cookbook. However, monkey bread is rarely heard of
outside of the United States.
The recipe I will be using today is
off of thepioneerwoman.com, a website for the popular Food Network show, The
Pioneer Woman. The star of the show, Ree Drummond, is a resident of Oklahoma
whose family owns and works on a cattle ranch. Her show focuses on
down-to-earth, homey cooking. Drummond herself defines her lifestyle and her
show’s theme as “country living.” While some people may debate just how
southern Oklahoma deserves to be labeled, The Pioneer Woman presents undeniably
southern recipes to her viewers that contain culture of the South.
Pastor Ryan’s Monkey Bread – The
Pioneer Woman
Ingredients
½
cup brown sugar
2
sticks of butter
2-3
teaspoons cinnamon
1
cup sugar
3
cans of buttermilk biscuits
Directions
1.
preheat oven
to 350
2.
open biscuits
and cut each pre-cut biscuit into quarters
3.
combine 1 cup
sugar and 2-3 teaspoons of cinnamon into a 1 gallon zip lock baggie, shake to
mix evenly
4.
drop all of
the biscuit quarters into the sugar mix and shake to unstick pieces from each
other and coat in cinnamon-sugar
5.
spread evenly
at bottom of Bundt pan
6.
melt 2 sticks
of butter with ½ cup of brown sugar, stir over medium-high heat until blended
7.
pour brown
sugar butter over biscuit quarters in pan
8.
bake at 350
derees for 30-40 minutes until crust is a deep brown on top
9.
let cool for
15-30 minutes, then turn upside down to get out of pan
