Monkey Bread Minis

Alright, these are already polished off so it's about time I finally got my post finished.

I've never had Monkey Bread in it's original form and correct me if I'm wrong, but these are just smaller - since they're baked in muffin tins instead of a bundt pan.

I think I've been missing out. I mean, it's like cinnamon rolls, but a bit more fun because you've got all these separate ball bits to pull off and nibble on. And the individual balls are like Tim Bits! Plus, while they're baking it's at least as enjoyable as when you get to eat them - the smell of the cinnamon sugar + pastry + a hint of maple syrup is to die for. 

This recipe was part of last week's challenge with the Gutsy Cooks Club and I was anticipating something good again. The tricky part was that I was already set on the suggested recipe before I realized that a food processor was the main tool used. Alright, I have an immersion blender and a hand mixer but my little student kitchen isn't equipped with a food processor (no idea where we'd put it if it was 1) in the budget and 2) something we thought we'd get enough use out of). Of course it's still possible to make these little guys, what did people do before all of these gadgets entered the kitchen. In my case, I went with the 2 knife pastry cutting method until I got a bit tired of it, then switched over to my hand mixer at a low speed. It seemed to work just fine.

Now on to the recipe as adapted from Tracy's recipe on her beautiful and fun blog, Shutterbean (there are some awesome photos on there).

I'm still using the water displacement trick for
measuring hard butter that I learnt in Jr. High Home-Ec

Monkey Bread Minis

Yields: 12 (muffin size)

Ingredients:

- 1/2 cup + 4 Tbsp. unsalted butter, chilled                                               

- 3 tablespoons maple syrup
- 1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp. granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1.5 Tbsp. ground cinnamon
- 2 cups flour
- 1 package (1Tbsp.) baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 3/4 cup buttermilk, chilled

  

Directions:

1.  In a small pot melt 4 Tbsp. butter with the maple syrup, once melted completely remove from heat to allow to cool. 

2. Stir 1/2 cup granulated sugar, 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1.5 Tbsp cinnamon together in a small bowl.

3. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, 2 Tbsp. sugar and salt. Cut in 1/2 cup butter until you achieve coarse crumbs.

4. If you haven't yet, this might be the point to switch to a hand mixer (or just get your muscles ready for some stirring) and blend in the buttermilk until the dough comes together. It gets soft and a bit sticky but should be able to form a ball quite easily.

5.  Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surfaced and pat down into a 25cm square.

6. Quarter the dough. Then divide each quarter into 16 pieces. Don't worry about them being too even.

7. Preheat oven to 215°C (425°F).

8. Start dipping! Roll the individual pieces slightly between your hands to form balls. Coat with the maple butter (I did a few at a time but you don't want to leave them in there too long or they start to melt a bit...), then roll in the cinnamon sugar until coated.

Place the balls directly into your muffin tin (5 or 6 in each cup) and press down to help them stick together a bit - don't worry, they'll rise when you bake them so flattened balls are okay at this point.

 9. Bake on the middle rack of the oven for 15-17 min. or until cooked through and golden brown. Allow to cool and for the sugar to resolidify slightly (around 10 min.) before carefully removing from your tin/forms. Mine were still pretty soft and a couple times the balls wanted to crumble away from each other... 

10. If you're interested in putting a drizzle on your mini monkeys check out Shutterbean's page.  I forgot to prepare it and by the time I realized, I'd already started testing mine and found them plenty sweet.

Enjoy!