Monkey Bread: Step-by-Step Pan de Mono Recipe

The monkey bread recipe (or “pan de mono”, as we call it here) is pure indulgence. A caramel-coated, cinnamon-flavoured cake lovingly assembled ball by ball is one of the greatest temptations in baking. Here’s our traditional step-by-step recipe to help you succeed on the first try.

Pan de mono or monkey bread is an American sweet bread that, ironically, is better known outside its borders. It’s a kind of pull-apart bread, caramel-coated with cinnamon flavour. The dough itself isn’t overly rich—it doesn’t use much butter or sugar. The sweetness and butteriness arise from coating the dough balls that are layered in a tube tin.

In this case, I used a quality tin, such as those from Nordic Ware, which allow easy unmoulding, especially when a caramel crust forms. I chose the classic Anniversary tube tin, as I believe it showcases the crown shape beautifully.

For the dough, I used my KitchenAid Artisan, which really saves time, but you can also prepare it manually.

KitchenAid Artisan and monkey bread made in the Nordic Ware Anniversary tin

Ingredients (for a ~25 cm bundt tin)

For the dough:

• 630 g plain flour
• 280 ml whole milk
• 40 g caster sugar**
• 20 g inverted sugar syrup**
• 1 organic medium egg
• 70 g melted, warm butter
• 1 sachet dried yeast (approx. 8 g) or 1 cube fresh yeast (approx. 25 g)
• 1 teaspoon salt

*Extra flour for the work surface

**If you don’t use inverted sugar, just use 60 g caster sugar

For the coating:

• 350 g brown sugar
• 3 teaspoons cinnamon
• 150 g melted, warm butter

Method

1. Melt the butter in the microwave and set aside.
2. Warm the milk to no more than 35–38 °C (check with a digital kitchen thermometer), stir in the yeast until dissolved, and set aside.
3. In a bowl, mix flour and salt. Make a well in the centre, add the warm butter, yeast-milk, beaten egg, sugar, and invert sugar if using. I used my KitchenAid Artisan, but you can mix by hand.
4. If using the KitchenAid, start with the paddle attachment, then switch to the dough hook and knead until smooth and glossy.
5. Lightly flour the surface, shape the dough into a ball, oil a large bowl, place the dough inside, cover with a kitchen cloth, and let it rise in a warm spot (about 23–24 °C) for about 1½ hours or until doubled.
6. Prepare a ~25 cm bundt cake tin with non-stick spray (Birkmann) or butter.
7. Once risen, prepare two bowls: one with the melted butter, one with brown sugar mixed with cinnamon.
8. On a floured surface, roll the dough into a rectangle about 0.5 cm thick using a rolling pin.
9. Using a sharp knife, cut strips into small squares. Roll each into a ball, dip in butter, then in cinnamon-sugar, and layer closely (but not tightly) in the tin.
10. Cover and let rest for another 30–40 minutes.
11. Preheat oven to 180 °C and bake for about 35 minutes.
12. Remove from oven, let rest on the counter for 5 minutes before inverting to unmould carefully.
13. Serve warm or lukewarm—it's tastier straight away, but delicious even cooled. Ideal finger food—pull apart each ball with your fingers!

Enjoy!

Virginia

Recipe author: Definitely worth following the wise guidance of Virginia Marín, author of this recipe and the blog Sweet&Sour.