The Kidlet wanted to help cook a thing the other day, and after flipping through the book this recipe caught her eye, as it looked both "tasty" and "sweet". And it is indeed both things! Canonically, the dough balls are meant to be separated from each other with your hands and eaten; the Kidlet finds the sticky glaze objectionable and prefers to use a fork.

Monkey Bread

Slightly adapted from the Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs by America's Test Kitchen

Ingredients

• 1 lb whole wheat pizza dough
• ½ C packed brown sugar¹
• 1½ tsp ground cinnamon
• ⅛ tsp ground nutmeg
• 6 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled (but still liquid)
• ⅓ C icing sugar
• 2 tsp milk

Directions

1. Grease an 8" round baking pan.
2. In a small bowl, combine the brown sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon.
3. On a greased counter, roll out the dough into a 6" square, and cut it into 36 even pieces.
4. Roll each piece of dough into a ball, dip it in the butter, roll it in the brown sugar mixture, and place it in the pan. In this way, cover the bottom of the pan in a single layer of closely packed dough balls.
5. Cover the pan with plastic wrap and let stand until dough balls have risen slightly, 30-45 minutes.
6. Preheat oven to 350°. Remove plastic and bake on the middle rack until light golden brown, 20-25 minutes.
7. Remove pan and let cool for 5 minutes.
8. Carefully flip out monkey bread onto a plate, and let cool for another 10 minutes.
9. Whisk together icing sugar and milk. Drizzle glaze over monkey bread, and serve warm.

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¹ Following the recipe as written left us with a surplus of sugar/cinnamon/nutmeg mix. If you have an alternative use for them (say, topping french toast), go for it; otherwise you might want to dial back these ingredients by at least half. ^Back