4.7.16 Mini Banana Monkey Bread
Guys - remember monkey bread? I don’t know what made me think of it recently, but as soon as I did, man, the memories came flooding back. That big gooey pile of cinnamon-y biscuit pieces baked together into the shape of a cake. Kindof like a cross between a sticky bun and a cinnamon roll, but way easier to make, and way more fun to eat. Just thinking about it makes your fingers itch to start pulling those little doughy pieces apart and devour them.
And once the thought of monkey bread was in my head, I couldn’t shake the idea that some needed to be made in the very near future. Of course, I decided to change things up a bit from the monkey bread of my youth. On the very rare occasions we had it growing up, it was made from refrigerated biscuit dough. Now that I’m an adult and have realized that making your own biscuit dough is actually pretty simple, I decided that if I made it from scratch, it would be pretty amazing, and really not too difficult at all. Best of all, I found that if you make monkey bread in a muffin tin, you end up with perfect, mini sized monkey breads. Personal-sized desserts being, of course, one of the best ways to serve dessert.
Also, as it so happened, I had a bunch of way-past-ripe bananas lying around, and decided that at least a few of them should be destined for something a bit more exciting than your standard smoothies or banana bread. This seemed like the perfect opportunity - banana monkey bread it was. It only seems fitting, don’t you think?
Mini Banana Monkey Bread
Makes 8
- 2 cups flour
- 2 tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp salt
- 4 Tbsp cold butter
- 1 cup mashed banana (about 2 large bananas)
- 2+ Tbsp milk
- 3 Tbsp melted butter
- ¼ cup + 2 Tbsp brown sugar
- ¾ cup sugar
- ¾ tsp cinnamon
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease 8 cups of a standard size muffin pan.
2. Combine the flour, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.
3. Cut the 4 Tbsp cold butter into very small pieces and add to the bowl. Using your hands, work the butter into the flour until the pieces are small and the mixture has a grainy texture.
4. Stir in the mashed banana and 2 Tbsp of milk and mix until a cohesive dough has formed. If dough seems dry and doesn’t come together well, add more milk in small increments until a workable consistency is reached.
5. In a large bowl or large ziploc bag, mix together the sugar and cinnamon.
6. Cut or pinch off tablespoon sized pieces of dough and add to the cinnamon sugar mixture. Mix until pieces are fully coated in cinnamon sugar (if dough is on the stickier side, you may want to do this in batches to keep them from all clumping together).
7. Mix together the melted butter and brown sugar. Divide mixture evenly between the 8 greased muffin cups. Top with equal amounts of the dough pieces until muffin cups are full. Place muffin pan on a baking sheet (to prevent any errant butter/sugar from dripping onto the floor of the oven), and into the oven.
8. Bake at 400 degrees until tops are golden brown, about 20-25 min. Remove from oven, run a knife around the edges of each muffin cup and invert monkey bread out onto a plate. I recommend serving warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and some pecans if you’re feeling decadent.
