Your Little Monkeys Will Love Making Yummy Monkey Bread

My three sons and I discovered monkey bread about five years ago. If you've never had this tasty treat, you will definitely want to try it. Kids as young as preschool age will have a blast helping in its creation, and they all love eating it. Monkey bread is basically just bits of dough baked together with brown sugar and butter in a tube pan. The finished product is easily pulled apart with your fingers, and enjoyed "monkey" style.

Our original recipe came from Cooks.com, but we have since changed it to better suit our tastes and the size of our family (and my boys). There are many variations on this theme.

You will need the following ingredients for the bread:

5 cans of flaky style refrigerator biscuits - any variety that peels apart in layers- I usually get inexpensive buttermilk biscuits (10 per package)
2-3 teaspoons of cinnamon, or more if you love cinnamon
3/4 cup of sugar

And these ingredients for the topping:
2 sticks of butter
2-3 teaspoons cinnamon
1-1/2 cups of brown sugar

To begin:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Place oven rack in center position. Grease a bundt pan or tube pan (that is one piece) and set aside.
Blend 2/3 cup of sugar and 2-3 tsps. of cinnamon together in a medium sized bowl. We love cinnamon so we always add extra to our recipe, but if you don't like cinnamon that much you can cut back on it.

Method:
Open biscuits and separate into sections. On a cutting board, cut each biscuit into quarters and then roll in sugar and cinnamon mixture with a spoon and drop into prepared bundt pan. This is the easiest part of the recipe for younger kids to do. The biscuits can be cut with a butter knife, and rolling the quarters in the sugar is fun for little ones.

In a large glass measuring cup or small bowl, melt butter in microwave on low power, stirring occasionally.
Combine cinnamon, brown sugar and melted butter, stirring until well blended.

Once you have cut half of the biscuits, rolled them in the sugar and placed them in the pan, pour approximately 1/3 of the brown sugar and butter topping over them. Cover with the remaining biscuit pieces and pour the rest of the topping over the top trying to spread it evenly. Bake for 35-40 minutes, checking, by pulling apart slightly with a spoon, that the dough pieces in the middle are cooked. Remove from oven. Cool in pan ten minutes. Invert on large plate, scraping any extra topping off of pan. Cool for another 2-3 minutes and warn your kids that the sugar mixture can still be very hot!

Serve with cold milk and lots of napkins. Enjoy!

You can also chop pecans and layer them throughout the biscuits. Serves 5-6.

Sources: http://www.cooks.com/rec/search?q=monkey+bread