Dessert

Cinnamon Roll Pull-Apart Monkey Bread

Sticky cinnamon-sugar pull-apart bread with a cream cheese glaze. Breakfast or dessert.

Prep 10 min HIGH 2–2½ hours Serves 8

Cinnamon Roll Pull-Apart Monkey Bread, finished and plated — Serving suggestion

Monkey bread gets its name from the way you eat it — pulling pieces off with your hands rather than slicing it. It's communal food, and it's almost impossible to eat politely.

It's also the only recipe in this book that uses refrigerated biscuit dough, which is a shortcut we're completely at peace with. Making yeasted dough for something you're going to coat in cinnamon sugar and tear apart would be missing the point.

There are twelve grams of cinnamon in this packet. That's a lot, deliberately. Monkey bread that isn't aggressively cinnamon-forward isn't worth making.

Why you'll love it

Breakfast or dessert, equally.

Nobody has ever objected to either.

Eaten with your hands.

No plates, no forks, no ceremony.

Twelve grams of cinnamon.

It is not subtle and it isn't supposed to be.

Two cans of dough and a packet.

That's the entire shopping list.

What's already in the packet

Brown sugar powderGranulated sugarCinnamonPowdered sugarCream cheese powderCornstarchBaking powderVanilla powderFine sea salt

Cinnamon-heavy with a cream cheese glaze built in — you hold back two tablespoons at the end to make it.

Choose your setting

This one cooks on HIGH

HIGH · 2–2½ hours

Desserts cook on HIGH. Put a paper towel under the lid to catch condensation.

Done when

Dough is cooked through in the middle, not doughy. Test a center piece.

You'll Need

1 packet Cook SLO Cinnamon Roll Pull-Apart Monkey Bread
2 cans (16 oz) Refrigerated biscuit dough
½ cup Butter, melted
3 tbsp Milk

What you add

2 cans

Refrigerated biscuit dough

½ cup

Melted butter

3 tbsp

Milk, for the glaze

Desserts cook on HIGH. Paper towel under the lid

Toppings & mix-ins

Chopped pecansRaisinsExtra cinnamon sugarCream cheese frostingCaramel drizzle

Chopped pecans tossed in with the dough add crunch between the soft pieces. Worth doing if nobody has a nut allergy.

Before anything goes in the pot

1
Coat the dough in a bag, not in a bowl
Cut each biscuit into quarters, drop them into a gallon zip bag, add the packet, seal it and shake hard. Every piece gets covered on every side, which tossing in a bowl never quite manages, and you have one bag to throw away instead of a sticky bowl to scrub.

These happen outside the crock pot, before it's switched on.

Tonight's Plan

1
Grease the crock pot very well, or use a liner.
Melted sugar welds itself to ceramic. Do not skip this.
2
Cut each biscuit into quarters and toss the pieces in the melted butter.
In a big bowl. Every piece should be coated.
3
Sprinkle most of the packet over the dough and toss again. Hold back about 2 tablespoons.
The 2 tablespoons you save become the glaze at the end.
4
Pile the coated dough into the crock pot and put the lid on.
Lay a paper towel under the lid — this one makes a lot of steam.

Right before you serve

Finishing touches

Mix the reserved packet powder with the 3 tbsp of milk to make a glaze.

Whisk until smooth. It should pour, not drip.

Turn the bread out onto a plate and drizzle the glaze over.

Serve it warm and let people pull it apart.

Stirring

Do not stir once the lid is on

Cakes, cobblers and puddings set in layers. Stirring collapses the separation between the cake and the sauce underneath, and you end up with one uniform wet layer instead of two good ones.

Swaps and add-ins

Add pecans.

A cup, tossed in with the dough.

Add raisins.

Half a cup. Traditional in cinnamon rolls.

Make it a caramel version.

Drizzle caramel sauce over the dough before cooking.

Use cinnamon roll dough instead of biscuits.

Quartered the same way. Even more cinnamon.

Tips for success

Grease the pot or use a liner. Sugar at 200°F for two hours bonds to ceramic. This is the recipe where a liner earns its keep.
Paper towel under the lid. Dough throws off enormous steam and it will rain onto the top.
Serve it warm. Monkey bread is dramatically better hot. It stiffens as it cools.
Drop in a liner before anything else. Smooth it against the sides and fold the edges over the rim. When you're done, lift it out and throw it away — the crock never needs scrubbing.

Finish it right

The cream cheese glaze, warm.

Made from the powder you held back. Pour it on right before serving.

A pinch of flaky salt.

On the glaze. It cuts through what is otherwise a very sweet dish.

Toasted pecans on top.

Crunch and a little bitterness against all that sugar.

Serve it over

Warm, pulled apart by handFor breakfast with coffeeWith ice cream for dessertOn a platter for a crowd

Tomorrow night

Reheat and re-glaze.

Thirty seconds in the microwave and a fresh drizzle.

Monkey bread french toast.

Sliced and fried in butter.

Bread pudding.

Cubed, soaked in custard and baked.

Cold with coffee.

Dense and chewy. Not bad at all.

Keeping it

Fridge

Covered, up to 3 days. It stiffens considerably.

Freezer

2 months, wrapped tightly.

Reheating

Microwave 20–30 seconds. It needs to be warm to be good.

Questions people ask

Recipe card