Happy Mother's Day!

I'm a few weeks late and it's the wrong holiday but life is getting in the way of this blog again! After today, I will have at least 2 more posts before I leave on vacation. I'm merely going to Pennsylvania/New York/New Jersey/Delaware for a week while my soon-to-be graduating brother(go UMass Lowell Riverhawks!) is spending three and a half weeks abroad in places like France, England and Spain. I'm only slightly jealous but he got an awesome deal on the trip because he and his friends booked it when they were students. I don't think I'd ever find that great of a deal on almost a month long trip across the pond. But I digress. This post is for the monkey bread M- and I made on Easter. I finally have the pictures, so here goes!


Monkey Bread aka Pull-Apart Bread

1 cup sugar
1 and 1/2 tablespoons cinnamon
Half cup chopped walnuts(optional)
3/4 cup margarine
4 small cans of buttermilk biscuits*
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

Pre-heat oven to 350. In a large bowl or large ziploc bag, combine sugar and cinnamon. Quarter each biscuit and coat them with the sugar and cinnamon mixture. Using a greased bundt pan or any 12 cup fluted tube pan, arrange biscuit pieces in the pan evenly, circling the pan until you've used up your last piece. If using the walnuts, sprinkle them around the bottom of the pan first. Bake 28-32 minutes or until no longer doughy in the center(this is where we went wrong although I'm pretty sure it's my oven and not user error). While bread is baking, combine brown sugar and butter in sauce pan until caramelized. Halfway through baking, pour over monkey bread and continue to bake. When it's done, you want to flip the pan and get it out as soon as possible. This dessert is best served warm. :)

*we used the wal-mart brand of biscuits, the four little cans were tied together with those plastic rings on a six pack of soda. if you cannot find the four small cans, you can use 2 large cans of biscuits.

You can probably do the steps anyway you please, but this was her aunt/mom's recipe for it so this is how we did it. I'm finding that my oven doesn't seem to be calibrated correctly(or whatever the term is) so things don't set right. My pumpkin pies last year had to be baked for an eternity before the center was set. Although to alleviate that issue, I just stuck them in the fridge for a while and that did the trick. And today, I made a quiche which I had to bake for an extra 25 minutes on top of the 45 it was in the oven for already because the center eggs were still running out when I cut into it. It really makes my baking life difficult. But I always manage to work around it!

Alright. This is all from me for now. I hope you enjoy this simple, delicious dessert and that your ovens cooperate more than mine does!

Enjoy!

Ashley