Monkeybread
A luxury bread that takes a while to prepare but is essentially, pastry-crack. I'm still in the process of figuring out the best ingredient proportions and baking methods.
Bake this in one of those deep pans with a hole in the middle.
Total Preparation Time
Total preparation time is 3 hours
- Prepare the dough - 15min
- Prepare the filling - 30min
- Assemble dough and filling - 30min
- Bake - 50-70min
Ingredients
Dough:
- Flour (divided) - 3 to 3 1/2 cups
- Sugar - 2 tablespoons
- Dry yeast - 1 tablespoon (15ml)
- Salt - 1 teaspoon (5ml)
- Milk - 1 cup
- Butter (melted and divided) - 1/2 cup
- Egg (beaten)
Filling:
- Apples - 4-8
- Sugar - 1 2/3 cups
- Pecans - 1 cup finely chopped
- Cinnamon - 1-2 teaspoons
Method
It's important to prepare this recipe in the order specified below.
- Combine 3 cups flour with 2 tablespoons sugar, yeast, and salt.
- Chop the butter up and put it into the milk then microwave it slowly until the butter just melts.
- Mix this into the flour
- Put the dough into a bowl, cover it with plastic, and set it aside while you prepare the filling (or 20min).
- Chop up the pecans to small peppercorn sized pieces and put them into a larger bowl.
- Peel your apples, divide into fourths, and remove the seeds and naughty bits.
- Cut the apples into cubic centimeter chunks and throw them into the bowl.
- Mix the sugar and cinnamon into the apple pecan mixture.
- Start making little pancakes with the dough.
- Break off a small bit of dough and roll it into a ball. It should still be slightly moist. Slap it down on the counter, optionally shouting out 'HA!' as you do this, then dip your hand the flour bowl and pat the upper surface. This ensures the dough won't stick to your rolling pin and will stay on the counter top. Roll the dough into round pancakes.
- Stack all the pancakes off to the side as you make them.
- Wrap a bit of the apple mixture in the little pancakes and seal the edges. It's important you don't let the apple mixture slop over the side of pancake because then the sides won't stick together. If you feel the need to sample the apple filling I suggest putting your face into the bowl.
- Put the apple filled purses into another large bowl.
- Dip each purse into the melted butter and toss it into the pan. Allow the excess butter to drip off. It sounds weird but it's actually possible to have too much butter. The butter keeps each purse separate and allows the bread to be picked apart by monkeys. It also tends to run down to the bottom and kind of fry the bread in the bottom of the pan.
- Drizzle the remainder of the apple filling over the top of pastry
