Cream cheese filled monkey bread. It sounds decadent because it is. If you’ve never had monkey bread, you might be a little curious as to what the fuss is all about. The best way I know to describe it is this: Imagine a cinnamon roll, with all that sweet, cinnamon-sugar goodness mixed into that soft buttery pastry. Add a bit of cinnamon sugar and pecans on the outside instead of icing and you’ve got monkey bread.
The great thing about monkey bread is that it is essentially balls of dough cooked in butter, cinnamon, and sugar. From there, however, you really can go a lot of different ways. Some recipes, like this one, use biscuit dough. Biscuit dough isn’t too hard to make homemade, but you can use the cans of refrigerated biscuits like this recipe calls for if you want a quicker version.
You can drizzle it with icing if you like, add some orange zest, make it without the pecans, make it with walnuts, or add in cocoa. I’ve even seen recipes that call for eggnog instead of milk if you’re making your own dough. In other words, once you get the basic monkey bread recipe down, you can really go wild and make it any way you like.
Let’s talk about this recipe, though. It’s about as easy as you could ask for, thanks to the refrigerated biscuit dough. The hardest part, really, is just wrapping the dough around the cream cheese cubes. But once you’ve done that, the rest is a breeze.
Put it in the oven for about 30 minutes while you sip your freshly brewed cup of coffee and do your favorite crossword puzzle. Just don’t ask me for help with 4 down. I always have trouble with that one.
PrintCream Cheese-Filled Monkey Bread
There’s monkey bread, then there’s cream cheese filled monkey bread, and one version definitely takes the breakfast prize.
- Prep Time: 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 50 minutes
- Yield: Serves 4-6 1x
- Category: Bakery
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 3 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
- 1 cup packed brown sugar
- 2 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese
- 2 (12-ounce) cans refrigerated biscuits (10 count)
- 1 1/2 cup pecans
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Spray a bundt pan with nonstick cooking spray.
- Mix the granulated sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. In a saucepan, melt the butter and brown sugar over low heat, stirring well; set aside.
- Cut the cream cheese into 20 equal cubes. Press the biscuits out with your fingers and sprinkle each with 1/2 teaspoon of the cinnamon sugar. Place a cube of cream cheese in the center of each biscuit, wrapping and sealing the dough around the cream cheese.
- Sprinkle 1/2 cup of the nuts into the bottom of the bundt pan. Place half of the prepared biscuits in the pan. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, pour half of the melted butter mixture over the biscuits, and sprinkle on 1/2 cup of nuts. Layer the remaining biscuits on top, sprinkle with the remaining cinnamon sugar, pour the remaining butter mixture over the biscuits, and sprinkle with the remaining 1/2 cup of nuts.
- Bake for about 30 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool for 5 minutes. Place a plate on top and invert.
Have you made monkey bread before? What’s your favorite add on for unique flavors?