Alton Brown isn’t monkeying around — though his monkey bread might test your patience. Most monkey bread recipes, such as Tasting Table’s own, are quick to bake. Meaning, they don’t require any prolonged rising periods but can, instead, be assembled immediately before baking. Brown, however, suggests giving your monkey bread an entire night to rise, upping his recipe’s total time to roughly 12 hours. This long-winded rising timeline may seem unnecessary, but, in actuality, can benefit your monkey bread’s flavor.
The overnight rising period allows your monkey bread dough enough time to develop both an idealized texture and taste. The most obvious benefit, of course, is a risen bread’s consistency; you never want a flat bread but, rather, one that’s airy and perfect for pulling apart. Yet at the same time, that overnight rise time also allows your bread to deepen in complexity. Essentially, a prolonged period to ferment creates a better, more developed flavor — and requires no extra effort on your part. Simply cover your bread and let it rise overnight. If you can wait even longer, Brown pinpoints a 16-hour maximum rising period, though be careful not to let your dough over-ferment.
As for how Brown’s recipe differs from other monkey breads? Brown takes no shortcuts, relying on a dough from the ground up.
Stay patient when making Alton Brown’s slow-rising monkey bread
As a brunch staple that can go either sweet or savory, monkey bread is a classic and versatile food that takes full advantage of all the shortcuts. In fact, many — if not most — monkey bread recipes rely on a base of pre-prepared, pre-packaged dough rather than starting a flaky dough entirely from scratch. Tasting Table’s cinnamon roll variation, for instance, utilizes Pillsbury Cinnamon Rolls — so you’re never beginning your recipe from square one. If you’d rather savory monkey bread, you can swap out the pre-made cinnamon roll dough for biscuit batter as evidenced by Tasting Table’s stuffing wreath monkey bread. Even Pioneer Woman Ree Drummond has a monkey bread recipe that hinges on ready-to-go biscuits, proving this technique’s validity and ease.
When compared to these more time-effective monkey bread recipes, Brown’s overnight monkey bread may seem overly long. However, his bread’s extra-complex taste and texture are well worth the 12-hour process. Not to mention, you’ll have infinite bragging rights as one of the few people daring to make monkey bread entirely from scratch.
