Apple Fritter Monkey Bread

I’m just going to give you a sec to take this whole glorious hot mess in.

Because: Apple Fritter Monkey Bread. People, I repeat: APPLE FRITTER MONKEY BREAD!!! Meaning: each little biscuit chunk is filled with apple turnover filling, which makes them so perfectly autumnal, you will dance in the streets. It is pretty much everything good in this world–and a lot of what’s bad (a megaton of butter, anyone?).

It is horrifying to actually type the following words but here goes nothing:

I did not know what monkey bread was until I was in college. 

That’s right, folks, I spent a full 18 years of my life pitifully ignorant of the pure bliss that is biscuits rolled in butter and sugar and then dumped with more butter. It is borderline criminal to be raised in a world without monkey bread.

But I survived. And this is what Apple Fritter Monkey Bread looks like when you turn it onto a plate and slide it out of the bundt pan. I may have accidentally added an extra cup of sugar but no worries, it melted into the most caramel-y goodness that felt all sorts of decadent.

This is what Apple Fritter Monkey Bread looks like all dressed up in a simple glaze and framed with picturesque apples freshly picked from a fine Michigan orchard. Because that’s how we roll in Michigan.

This is what Apple Fritter Monkey Bread looks like next to a tall drink of milk. And a stripey straw, added by Warren, the Apple Turnover king himself, who is really coming around to food styling, though it took all of our joint willpower to resist diving in so I could snap some photos.

We didn’t last long, obvi.

And then we added some more glaze because if there’s one thing Apple Fritter Monkey Bread can always use more of, it’s sugar.

Here’s another confession: I have never actually made monkey bread before. In college I relied on generous friends and their infinite refrigerated biscuit dough knowledge. Now that I’m a fully grown person who is fully capable of, like, baking, I rely on my sister to make monkey bread for me during my annual Florida visit. It’s probably a good thing that I only eat monkey bread once a year.

This monkey bread was made from scratch with love in my very own kitchen. Because now that I’m a fully grown person, I also know that emergency monkey bread attacks can strike at any time. One must always be prepared.

Note: it looks like there are about four million steps to this recipe but none of them are all that terrifying. If you need to save time, just buy four cans of refrigerated biscuit dough and proceed to the apple filling part. It will all be worth it in the end–I can promise you that.

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Table of Contents

Apple Fritter Monkey Bread

For the Dough (you can also use 4 cans of refrigerated biscuit dough instead of making the dough from scratch)

Ingredients

• 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast (or 1 package)
• 1/4 cup warm water
• 1 1/4 cups warm 2% milk
• 1/3 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 5 cups all purpose flour

Instructions

• To make the dough, dissolve the yeast in warm water in a large bowl. Wait a minute or so to make sure the yeast gets frothy. Add the warm milk, butter, and eggs. Mix to combine. Add the sugar and salt and mix to combine. Add flour a cup at a time and mix until incorporated. Knead for five-minutes, until dough is elastic (it will still be a bit sticky).
• Grease a bowl and put dough in it. Cover bowl and put somewhere warm to rise for two hours, or until double in size (you can also make the dough the night before and let it rise in the fridge).

 

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Apple Fritter Monkey Bread

For the Apple Filling

Author: Amy Lee Scott

Ingredients

• 2 apples, peeled and diced in small chunks
• 3 tablespoons white sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions

While you wait for the dough to rise, prepare the apple filling. Put diced apples in a bowl and mix with sugar. Set aside and let juices collect at the bottom (this will make sure that the filling isn’t watery).

 

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Apple Fritter Monkey Bread

For the Coating

Author: Amy Lee Scott

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter melted
• 3/4 cup white sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Instructions

• Prepare the coating ingredients. Melt butter in a small bowl. In another small bowl, mix sugar and cinnamon together to form cinnamon sugar.

 

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Apple Fritter Monkey Bread

For the Caramel Sauce

Author: Amy Lee Scott

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2/3 cup light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Instructions

• Prepare the caramel sauce (which you will pour over the assembled monkey bread before baking) by mixing all the ingredients together in another bowl.

To Assemble Monkey Bread
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. After the dough has risen, punch it down and pull of 2-inch chunks. Flatten into a disc and fill with 1-2 teaspoons apple filling. Pull the dough around the filling and form into a ball. Roll each fritter in the melted butter and the cinnamon sugar coating.
Place fritters in a bundt pan and sprinkle a few diced apples between layers. Once you fill the bundt pan about 3/4 way, pour the caramel sauce over the fritters. Bake for 35-40 minutes. Cover the bundt pan with foil if it is browning too quickly.
When the monkey bread is done baking, cool in the bundt pan for 5-10 minutes. Then turn the whole pan out onto a large plate. Drizzle with glaze and serve.