Monkey Bread

Anyone that has ever been to my parents house on a weekend morning has probably had Monkey Bread.  My mom has been making it since before I was born and it's one of my all time favorite foods.  It's not something you want to eat every day but when you get the chance you can't help but stuff yourself.  It doesn't help that it's served in bite size pieces so there's always room for one more piece.The combination of the warm bread with the gooey, sugary,  buttery sauce that's on it is simply sinful. 

It's pretty easy to make too.  The most difficult part is remembering to take the frozen bread dough out of the freezer the night before.  My mom has seen many a disappointed face because of that - and it's usually mine.

Ingredients
-1 loaf of frozen bread thawed (overnight)
-1/4 cup of butter
-1 cup brown sugar, divided (you can use light or dark, but dark is better)
-1/2 cup milk divided (you can't use skim b/c it will curdle but canned milk works)
-1/4 cup light karo syrup
- cinnamon
- extra butter and brown sugar

Combine butter, 1/2 cup of brown sugar, 1/4 cup of milk and syrup in small sauce pan.  Bring to a boil and remove from heat.

Pour the mixture into a greased pan.  We always use my mom's 30 year old orange bunt pan.  I understand not everyone is lucky enough to have one of these so you can use a pie pan, a bread loaf pan, a square cake pan - anything that will hold a loaf of bread.

Tear the bread dough into little chunks.  In a small dish combine some brown sugar and cinnamon - about a 1/2 cup of brown sugar to a teaspoon of cinnamon. You might need more than this. In another dish melt about 1/4 cup of butter. Take the chunks of bread dough and dunk them in the butter, then in the brown sugar & cinnamon and plop them into the pan.  If there is any brown sugar/cinnamon or butter left you can sprinkle it over the top.

                               

Drizzle 1/4 cup of milk over the top and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, until golden brown.  The bread will pop up over the pan so you might want to put a piece of foil under the pan.

Place on table until it looks like this.........