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The Best Cinnamon Monkey Bread

Cinnamon Monkey Bread is bite sized pieces of ooey gooey, glazed, pull apart cinnamon bread! Made with a rich yeasted dough and topped with a delicious vanilla sugar glaze or cinnamon cream cheese frosting depending on how you want to finish it.

We love this for a holiday morning snack, an addition to a dessert table lineup, or a scrumptious Easter brunch treat.

Monkey Bread
Monkey bread is a tender pull apart bread coated in sugar, cinnamon and glazed for a decadent yummy treat
Monkey Bread
A pretty, fun breakfast or dessert. Everyone will love it!

Coconut oil is amazingly tasty in baked goods, adds wonderful flavor and is healthy for you! That will help offset how much of it is needed in this recipe! Can you use butter instead of coconut oil? Absolutely!

We have made this Monkey bread with a regular vanilla glaze and also, as you see pictured, a cream cheese cinnamon vanilla glaze. Both taste great. This cream cheese glaze is a bit richer and thicker, so the result is definitely different. Choose whichever you prefer!

Monkey Bread From Scratch
A gorgeous pull apart bread. Glazed here with cream cheese cinnamon vanilla glaze. Delicious!

How do you make the best Cinnamon Monkey Bread?

  • Fresh yeast makes great bread. Yeast is an important component in baking and you need a rich, strong yeast for the best results.
  • Use a good bread flour. Your results depend on your ingredients. Your flour will affect how much you need to make a proper dough. Some flours are drier than others. That’s why the flour quantities are approximate.
  • If you have a good stand mixer with a dough hook, not much, or no kneading is required for this recipe. Just be careful not to over mix! That will give you tough bread, you want a tender sweet dough, so keep the handling and kneading to a minimum.

Make the dough

  1. Knead with your stand mixer or your hands until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. Do not over-knead, which will yield a tough, chewy bread.
  2. The dough is ready when it is smooth and resilient.
  3. Form dough into a smooth ball and place into a greased bowl large enough to handle the dough doubling in size.
  4. Turn the dough in the greased bowl to grease the top of the dough.
  5. Cover  the bowl tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight. It will double in your fridge.

After the dough is doubled

Grease a 10-12 cup bundt pan. Set aside.

Make the coating

Melt 1/2 cup coconut oil in a small bowl.

Mix granulated sugar and cinnamon together in another small bowl. Set aside.

Punch the cold dough down very gently to allow the air bubbles to release.

Pull apart pieces of the cold dough and roll into balls, about 1.25 inches in diameter. You will need 40-45 balls total.

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Dip each ball, one by one, in the melted coconut oil and then generously roll in the cinnamon-sugar mixture to coat them. You may need more cinnamon-sugar depending how heavy you coat each ball.

Arrange them in the bundt pan as you go; Tuck them next to each other in some sort of order to keep it looking even, for a prettier finished result. You may find you don’t have enough balls to fill the pan. This recipe will expand as it bakes. So you are only going to make two loosely packed rows of balls. They will fill the pan once baked!

To Bake:

  1. Preheat oven to 350F.
  2. Melt the remaining 1/4 cup of coconut oil and whisk in the brown sugar and vanilla until combined. (all I did was use the leftover sugar/spice mix from rolling the dough balls. Just mix them together)
  3. Pour this mixture over the dough balls in the bundt pan.
  4. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown on top. Cover loosely with foil if the top browns too quickly.
  5. Cool for 5-10 minutes and invert onto a large serving plate.

Top with the glaze and serve

  1. whisk whichever glaze ingredients together you choose from the two glaze recipes provided, and pour over the bread.
  2. Top with chopped pecans(or walnuts) if you like. We enjoyed the extra crunch!
  3. This can be a formal or informal treat. Serve it on pretty plates or set out the cake plate and let your family grab off gooey pieces. That’s how we do things.

The monkey bread may pull apart as you try to plate it. Just assemble it back together and use the glaze to disguise the cracks if necessary.

This bread is best served promptly after glazing but it will hold for several days if it is covered. A covered cake plate is recommended for an air tight container to keep it from drying out or blotching up the glaze.

To make this recipe as a special breakfast:

  • Make the dough the night before, let it rise in the fridge all night.
  • Next morning bake and glaze it.

That reduces the time it takes to make and the mess this recipe creates. When you have other things to think about that is nice.

Monkey bread works for dessert too.

  • Make it in the morning and bake it just before dinner.
  • Glaze and serve after dinner when it cools.
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Your Printable Recipe:

Cinnamon Monkey Bread
Yield: 20

Cinnamon Monkey Bread

Prep Time: 9 hours 10 minutes
Cook Time: 35 minutes
Total Time: 9 hours 45 minutes

Monkey Bread is bite sized pieces of Ooey Gooey, glazed, pull apart cinnamon bread! A way over the top scrumptious, decadent, special treat. This is perfect for a holiday morning snack, a dessert table, or any occasion where you need a sharable sweet snack.

Ingredients

  • Dough
  • 1 package (2 and 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
  • 1/4 Cup warm water (110F-115F)
  • 1 and 1/4 cups warm whole milk (110F-115F)
  • 1/3 Cup coconut oil, melted
  • 1/4 Cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 5 Cups all-purpose flour
  • Coating
  • 3/4 Cup melted coconut oil
  • 1 and 1/4 Cups granulated sugar
  • 1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon
  • 2/3 Cup light brown sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Vanilla Glaze
  • 1 Cup (120g) confectioners sugar
  • 3 Tablespoons 45ml heavy cream
  • 1 Tablespoon vanilla
  • 1 tsp. Cinnamon
  • To make a cream cheese frosting
  • 4 oz. cream cheese softened
  • 3/4 Cup confectioners sugar
  • 3 Tablespoons milk
  • 1 tsp. vanilla
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

Make the dough:

  1. In a large mixing bowl, dissolve yeast in warm water. Stir it around a bit and let it sit for about 2 minutes.
  2. Add the milk, melted coconut oil, sugar, eggs, salt, and 3 cups of flour.
  3. Beat on high speed for 3 minutes (using a dough hook if you have a stand mixer or using a hand mixer).
  4. Add enough remaining flour to form a firm dough. About 5 cups total.
  5. Turn the dough onto a floured surface:
  6. Knead until smooth and elastic, about 5 minutes. *Do not over-knead, which will yield a tough, chewy bread*
  7. The dough is ready when it is smooth and resilient.
  8. Form dough into a smooth ball and place into a greased bowl large enough to handle the dough doubling in size.
  9. Turn the dough once to grease the top.
  10. Cover the bowl tightly with plastic wrap or aluminum foil and refrigerate for 8 hours or overnight.
  11. *After the dough is doubled in size*
  12. Spray a 10-12 cup bundt pan with cooking spray. Set aside.
  13. Make the coating by melting 1/2 cup of coconut oil in a small bowl. Then, mix granulated sugar and cinnamon together in another small bowl. Set aside. Save the rest of the coconut oil, brown sugar, and vanilla for later.
  14. Punch the cold dough down very gently to allow the air bubbles to release.
  15. Pull apart pieces of the cold dough and roll into balls (about 1.25 inches in diameter) You will need 40-45 balls total.
  16. Dip each ball, one by one, in the melted coconut oil and then generously roll in the cinnamon-sugar mixture to coat them. You may need more cinnamon-sugar depending how heavy you coat each ball.
  17. Arrange them in the bundt pan as you go.

To Bake:

  1. Preheat oven to 350F.
  2. Melt the remaining 1/4 cup of coconut oil and whisk in the brown sugar and vanilla until combined.
  3. Pour this mixture evenly over the dough balls in the bundt pan.
  4. Bake for 30-35 minutes or until golden brown on top. Cover loosely with foil if the top browns too quickly.

Cool for 5-10 minutes and invert onto a large serving plate.

    Top with the glaze and serve:

    1. whisk the glaze ingredients together and pour over the bread.
    2. You may either cut the bread into generous slices or let everyone pick off the gooey pieces themselves.

    Notes

    Monkey bread tastes best served on the same day, but will stay fresh for 3 days if stored covered at room temperature or in the refrigerator.

    Nutrition Information


    Amount Per Serving Calories 354

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    Tuesday 15th of December 2015

    […] family tradition for Christmas Morning Breakfast is Monkey Bread.  I am going to try Monkey Bread from Scratch from Homemade Food Junkie this […]

    Heidy L. McCallum

    Tuesday 8th of December 2015

    I love a good monkey bread, haven't had a really good one in forever, definitely looking forward to putting your delicious recipe to the test!!

    Kayti Lavergne

    Tuesday 8th of December 2015

    Thank you!!

    Sheena @Tea and Biscuits

    Monday 7th of December 2015

    I've never ever had monkey bread, but yours looks so good! I really need to try it sometime :)

    homemadefoodjunkie

    Monday 7th of December 2015

    I hope you do Sheena. It's very similar to cinnamon rolls; but a pull apart bread!

    Gaye @CalmHealthySexy

    Monday 7th of December 2015

    Oh my, Diane, this looks sooo good!

    homemadefoodjunkie

    Monday 7th of December 2015

    Thank you Gaye, These are a yummy treat!

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    […] I make dinner rolls, and the occasional sweet treat; like Homemade cinnamon rolls and monkey bread from Scratch. I have made my own yeast breads for several […]

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