Make a sweet bread that requires you eat it with your hands

The name “monkey” refers to how you eat this sweet treat—with your hands. Follow this recipe with your kids. (File photo: Eliza Adam/Flickr, CC BY-ND 2.0)

Monkey bread is a knotty-looking loaf of sweet bread made from balls of dough coated with cinnamon, sugar and melted butter. It’s traditionally served warm so that the sticky baked pieces can be pulled apart. The name “monkey” refers to how you eat this sweet treat—with your hands. Follow this recipe with your kids.

MONKEY BREAD

Servings: 8

Start to finish: 2 to 3 hours (Active time: 10 minutes)

Prepare Ingredients:

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Vegetable oil spray

1 pound pizza dough, room temperature

1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar

2 teaspoons milk

Gather Cooking Equipment:

3 small bowls

8-inch round cake pan

Ruler

Kitchen shears

Plastic wrap

Oven mitts

Cooling rack

Large plate

Spoon

Start Cooking!

In small bowl, stir together brown sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Place melted butter in second small bowl. Spray 8-inch round cake pan with vegetable oil spray.

Spray counter lightly with vegetable oil spray. Place dough on greased counter and pat into 6-inch square. Use kitchen shears to cut dough into 36 pieces

Roll each piece of dough into ball. Dip each ball in melted butter to coat, roll in brown sugar mixture, then place in greased pan.

Cover bottom of pan with dough balls in single layer.

Cover pan tightly with plastic wrap and leave in warm place until dough balls are puffy and have risen slightly (about 1/2 inch), 1 to 2 hours.

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350 F.

Discard plastic. Place pan in oven and bake until top of monkey bread is light golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes.

Use oven mitts to remove monkey bread from oven (ask an adult to help). Place pan on cooling rack and let monkey bread cool for 5 minutes (no longer).

Place large plate on top of pan. Ask an adult to carefully flip out monkey bread onto plate. Remove pan. Let cool for 10 minutes before glazing.

In third small bowl, stir confectioners’ sugar and milk until smooth. Use spoon to drizzle glaze over monkey bread.

Serve warm.

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Nutrition information per serving: 280 calories; 90 calories from fat; 10 g fat (6 g saturated; 0 g trans fats); 23 mg cholesterol; 443 mg sodium; 43 g carbohydrate; 1 g fiber; 18 g sugar; 3 g protein.

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For more recipes, cooking tips and ingredient and product reviews, visit https://www.americastestkitchen.com. Find more recipes like Monkey Bread in “The Complete Cookbook for Young Chefs .”

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America’s Test Kitchen provided this article to The Associated Press.