Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Pecan Monkey Bread

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HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope 2015 is a good year for all of us. 

I've been so bad at posting! And here I was, resolving to post more regularly in 2015! It has been a hectic year so far. We've been barely cooking and eating at home. For the last few days, things have become slightly less crazy, and we've all grown tired of eating out. So here's my first post for this year. 

This recipe is from a book I got as a Christmas gift. It's a compilation of baking recipes by Martha Day. The book has tons of awesome sounding recipes from all over the world! Unfortunately I'm unable to find a link to an online store that's selling this particular book. 
This morning for breakfast we ate this delicious Monkey Bread. It was really, really good! I made the dough, finished the first rise and assembled the bread last night and left it in the fridge overnight. This morning, I took it out of the fridge at about 5am and let it sit out on the counter till around 7:30. We had fresh Monkey Bread for breakfast, and lots of smiles all around!

Pecan Monkey Bread 
Adapted from "Baking" by Martha Day
Ingredients
4 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tbsp instant yeast
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
1/2 cup whole milk
1/2 cup water
30g unsalted butter, softened
1 egg
1 egg yolk
Coating:
1/2 cup soft light brown sugar
1/4 cup soft dark brown sugar
2/3 cup coarsely chopped pecans
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/3 cup melted butter

Method
1. In a saucepan, combine the milk, water and butter. Heat gently until the butter has almost dissolved completely. Set aside for 5 minutes and stir in the egg, and the egg yolk and whisk well to combine. Check the temperature and allow it to cool until the mixture is slightly warm - about 105-110F. 
2. In a large bowl, or in the bowl of your stand mixer, stir together the flour, instant yeast, salt and sugar. Set aside.
3. When the milk mixture is warm, create a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour the milk mixture in. Stir will a wooden spoon until the dough comes together. Then knead the dough using the hook attachment on your stand mixer or by hand until the dough is smooth and elastic. This will take about 7-8 minutes on your stand mixer at medium speed, and about 10-15 minutes by hand.
4. Coat a large bowl with oil, and place the ball of dough into the bowl, giving it a turn in the bowl to coat it lightly with oil. Cover the top with clingfilm and set aside for about 1-1.5 hours. You want the dough to double in volume during this time. 
5. Prepare the coating ingredients by combing the sugars, pecans and cinnamon powder in a small bowl. Keep the melted butter in a separate bowl. Prepare a 9 or 10inch fluted baking tin by greasing it generously. I used a 10" angel cake tin. 
6. At the end of the proofing time, deflate the dough and divide it into 32 even sized pieces. 
7. Roll each piece of dough into a tight ball. Drop each ball into the butter and using a fork, fish out the ball and drop it into the bowl with cinnamon sugar. Roll the ball in this mixture until it is well coated, making sure that some pieces of pecan have stuck on to the ball. Drop the ball into the prepared tin.
8. Continue rolling and layering the balls of dough in the baking tin until you've used up all the dough. 
9. Cover the pan with clingfilm and set aside for about 45 minutes or until the dough is risen and puffy.
10. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F. Bake the Money Bread for about 30 minutes or so or until the bread is golden brown.
11. Allow to cool for 10 minutes, loosen the sides using a knife and flip the bread onto a plate.
12. Serve warm and let people rip off a ball or five and enjoy!
The original recipe contained 1/2 cup of raisins that are sprinkled over the balls of dough about halfway into layering. My husband isn't a great fan of raisins in cinnamon bread, and so I decided to omit.

What the recipe doesn't suggest is drizzling the bread with decadent cream cheese glaze before serving. I high recommend this. I tried it after the pictures were taken, and it was just divine! And that's not even the best part! The best part of this recipe is those little pecan halves that drop off the bread and are sugar roasted to perfection. Crunching on those candied pecans was just bliss!
I'll be back again soon (I hope!), with more delicious recipes to share for this year! God bless you all! :)


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5 comments:

Sharon said...

Happy new year, Marsha… I hope 2015 is great for you as well, my dear. I love this recipe. The caramel looks so lovely and inviting. Bookmarking this one. I think it would be great for a brunch I'm planning next month… Keep those wonderful recipes coming!~~~

Jumbodium said...

Yummy break. Looks like a perfect baked chocolate cake. Just lovely. Thank u for sharing the recipe with us. Will surely prepare and share the feedback with u. Thank u once again. Hope to get lots more from u.

Jumbodium said...

Yummy muffins. Too good in texture and color combinations. The berries look delicious. Thank u for the share. Keep posting lots more.

Molly said...

I love the deep dark caramel color. I love candied pecans. my favourite snack from TJ's. I'm bookmarking this one to make for my family…. thank you!

Molly said...

I made this recipe last week. I meant to write earlier. These were very tasty. The tang of the cream cheese was quite subtle. Next time i'll add some more and see what happens. I will let you know. thank you!

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