Easy Monkey Bread

With a sticky brown sugar syrup and plenty of cinnamon and sugar, this easy monkey bread makes for a decadent breakfast or dessert. Thanks to one simple trick, your family will never guess that this recipe started with canned biscuit dough!

I don’t start every day with a decadent breakfast. We don’t even have fancy breakfasts every weekend! 

Most of the time, I’m lucky to get a batch of bisquick pancakes made for the kids. 

But for holiday mornings? That’s a time to pull out all of the stops for a special breakfast treat.

Whether it’s Easter, Christmas morning, Thanksgiving, or someone’s birthday, that’s when I will make something like this easy monkey bread.

The kids can pick off bites of the cinnamon-y, caramel-y bread while I sip a dirty chai or iced shaken espresso while we all stay in our pajamas a bit longer than normal. It’s a great way to start the day!

What is monkey bread?

Have you ever had monkey bread?

No, there aren’t any monkeys in it (promise!), and it’s not made with bananas.

Monkey bread is made from small balls of dough that are coated in cinnamon sugar and baked together in a bundt pan. Sometimes the dough is topped with a sugary syrup before baking, and sometimes the finished bread is topped with a powdered sugar glaze.

Once you turn it out of the pan, you can kind of pick off the pieces of dough and eat them one at a time. Some people think that’s why it’s called monkey bread, but I don’t think anyone really knows for sure.

It’s a sweet pull-apart bread that can be served for a special holiday breakfast or brunch. But it’s also decadent enough that it can make a delicious dessert. You really can’t go wrong either way!

My trick for the best easy monkey bread

Some monkey bread recipes are made with a yeast dough, similar to overnight cinnamon rolls, while others are made with biscuit dough.

I love the texture of homemade dough but want the ease of using refrigerated biscuit dough. So here’s my trick:

Remember how we used heavy cream to make our cinnamon rolls with heavy cream taste homemade? We’re going to use that exact same method here with canned biscuit dough to make this easy monkey bread taste homemade, too.

A few cans of buttermilk biscuit dough get paired with cinnamon sugar, then topped with heavy cream. Before baking, we’ll add a brown sugar syrup all over the top.

You get the rich flavors of cinnamon and caramel notes from the brown sugar syrup with the fluffy biscuit pieces. The syrup is a bit gooey, the bread is fluffy, and the entire thing is so, so delicious.

(If this is a combo you really love, you should try my pecan sticky buns too!)

How to make this recipe

As the name suggests, this is an easy recipe to put together! You can even prep it the night before if you want. 

After all, I’m always looking for ways to make holiday mornings even easier.

Ingredients you’ll need

The ingredients for my easy monkey bread are really simple. There’s a good chance you have most of what you need in your pantry already:

• 3 (16 ounce) cans refrigerated buttermilk biscuit dough
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons cinnamon
• ¾ cup heavy cream
• ½ cup unsalted butter
• ½ cup lightly packed light brown sugar
• Pinch of fine sea salt
• 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

For the best texture, I recommend skipping the “flaky layers” biscuit dough. Look for buttermilk biscuit dough instead; you can usually find it in 16-ounce cans. 

I pack 2 full tablespoons of cinnamon into this recipe. It might sound like a lot, but you don’t want to skimp on that cinnamon flavor! 

Brown sugar is the base of the syrup and helps give the whole thing a rich caramel flavor. If you are out of brown sugar, make a simple brown sugar substitute to use instead. 

You can also learn how to soften brown sugar if yours hardened in the pantry.

Making my easy monkey bread

This easy monkey bread gets baked in a bundt pan. Because the bread is so dense, using a bundt pan helps the bread bake more evenly.

I recommend using a 12-cup bundt pan if you have one, but a 10-cup will work as well. Spray the pan with nonstick cooking spray.

Pop open all 3 cans of biscuits and cut each biscuit into quarters. 

Put the granulated sugar and the cinnamon into a large zip-top bag and shake to combine. Add the biscuit pieces and shake the bag to coat all of the biscuit pieces in the cinnamon sugar.

If it’s easier for you, feel free to do this in batches.

Add all of the coated biscuit pieces to your prepared bundt pan, arranging them evenly in the pan. Slowly pour the heavy cream over the top. Set aside for at least 5 minutes to allow the heavy cream to soak into the dough.

In a small saucepan over medium heat, add the butter and brown sugar. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the butter is melted and the mixture just starts to bubble around the edges.

Take the pan off the heat and stir in a pinch of salt and the vanilla. Slowly drizzle this mixture over the top of the biscuit pieces.

Set the bundt pan on a rimmed baking sheet – this will help catch any syrup that bubbles over in the oven.

Bake the monkey bread at 350°F for 45-55 minutes. Let it rest for 5-10 minutes before inverting it onto a serving platter.

If you are using a smaller (10-cup) bundt pan, the monkey bread may start to get very browned around the top edges before it is done baking. If this happens, simply tent a piece of foil over the top of the pan to prevent further browning while it finishes baking.

Easy monkey bread variations

This recipe is for a super classic version of monkey bread. But you can easily change it up with a few ingredient swaps and additions.

To incorporate even more flavor, try swapping the cinnamon for apple pie spice, pumpkin pie spice, or chai spice. The additional spices such as cardamom, ginger, and nutmeg pair really well with the rich caramel sauce.

You can also add other ingredients to the bread, such as raisins, chopped nuts, dried cranberries, or dried apple pieces. Sprinkle these in when you add the dough pieces to the pan, making sure to evenly incorporate them throughout. 

Make-ahead tip

If you’ve been reading MBA for a while, you know that I love breakfast recipes that can be made ahead of time. 

You can assemble this easy monkey bread recipe the night before you plan to serve it and bake it in the morning. 

Assemble the bread through step 6. After topping with the syrup, cover the pan tightly with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator overnight.

The next morning, let the pan rest at room temperature while the oven preheats. Bake as directed.