Make-Ahead Monkey Bread
Make-ahead monkey bread using frozen dough balls coated in cinnamon sugar with a buttery cinnamon sauce, rising overnight in a Bundt pan. Prep the night before.
YIELD
12 servingsPREP
20 minCOOK
40 minREADY
60 minThis monkey bread does all its work while you sleep. Toss frozen dough balls in cinnamon sugar, pile them into a Bundt pan, pour melted butter sauce over the top, and let it rise overnight. In the morning, 30 minutes in the oven and you’ve got a hot, gooey, pull-apart breakfast with almost zero active effort.
The double layer of cinnamon sugar is what makes this sticky and irresistible. The dough balls get coated in a dry cinnamon-sugar mix first, then the melted butter sauce with more cinnamon and sugar pours over everything and pools at the bottom. When you flip the finished bread onto a plate, that butter sauce becomes a glossy, caramel-like topping.
Wetting the frozen dough balls slightly before rolling in the cinnamon sugar helps the coating stick. Dry frozen dough sheds the sugar as it rises.
Eat this hot. Seriously. Monkey bread that’s been sitting around loses its gooey magic and turns dense. Warm is when the layers pull apart into soft, sticky strands.
Kitchen Tips
- Use a frozen bread dough loaf cut into 24 pieces if you can’t find pre-made dough balls. Defrost just enough to slice, about 1 ½ hours.
- Spray the Bundt pan generously. The caramelized sugar cements itself to an ungreased pan.
- For extra gooey results, use 1 ½ sticks of butter instead of one. The original recipe was already scaled back, so go big if that’s your thing.
- Cover with a towel, not plastic wrap. The dough needs to breathe as it rises, and plastic traps too much moisture.
Variations
- Cream cheese filling: Tuck a small cube of cream cheese inside each dough ball before coating for a surprise tangy center.
- Maple pecan: Add chopped pecans to the pan and drizzle maple syrup into the butter sauce for a nutty, maple-forward version.
Ingredients
Directions
About 8 hours before serving, or night before, combine first two ingredients in a bowl.
Remove 24 frozen dough balls from freezer and wet them slightly before adding to sugar/cinnamon mixture.
Stir to coat and dump into a Bundt pan sprayed w/cooking spray.
Melt butter and add remaining sauce ingredients in a small bowl and pour over dough.
Cover with a towel and let rise 8 hours or overnight.
Bake 350℉ (180℃) for about 30 minutes.
Place large plate on top and invert bread onto plate.
Let cool only long enough that you don’t get burned - this is best when hot.
Note: I’ve always gotten my frozen dough balls by defrosting one store-bought frozen bread dough loaf just until I can cut through it w/a knife (about 1½ hours), then divide into 24 equal pieces.
I then flash freeze and store in Ziploc until I need them (don’t know if it’s bad to defrost dough and freeze w/out cooking like it is w/meat but we haven’t had a problem).
Soon, I plan on trying the recipe posted here recently that makes 2 loaves +16 balls and just saving up the balls until I’m ready to make the bread.
You can play around a lot w/amount of butter, cinnamon and sugar, the one I posted above is already cut down, if you want it really gooey and buttery then use one and a half sticks of butter.
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