Healthy Monkey Bread
Prior to 9 a.m. this morning, my children and even my husband had never, ever had monkey bread.
That is so tragic.
What kind of mother could possibly withhold this amazing creation of soft, buttery, sugary dough from her family?
(sheepishly raises hand)
Admittedly, each bite is heaven. As if someone went to the trouble of unraveling 40 cinnamon rolls and then saved you each and every belly button.
I love that someone.
Because next, someone took all 40 of those belly buttons, stuffed them into a pan and covered them with even more buttery, sugary glaze.
And while it isn’t everyday breakfast fare, the decadence has nothing to do with the fact that I hadn’t baked up this mountain of belly buttons for my family.
The sole deterrent has been sheer terror…
…of peel-away refrigerator biscuit cans.
I can think of few things that freak me out more. The mocking silver label saying, “Peel here!” so joyfully. Oh, I bet you want me to peel here.
As I tear the paper, millimeter by millimeter at a time, my palms sweat, my heart beats loudly in my ears and I cringe in anticipation of that single, frightening moment when the flimsy cardboard gives way into a violent explosion of dough. And then I go change my pants.
Today, on the eve of Lulu’s birthday, on the eve of Gigi’s first day of school, on the eve of summer as we know it, I thought we should all celebrate with a mound of belly buttons.
Only I cleaned up the glaze a bit, with less butter, less sugar and a secret ingredient. Plus, someone saved me a lot of trouble on the dough front.
And the pants laundering front, too.
I love that someone.
And I love this recipe. I hope you do, too.
Healthy Monkey Bread
Serves 4-6 hungry monkeys
- 16 oz. of your favorite wheat pizza dough (store bought, i.e. Trader Joe’s, or homemade)
- 3 T. sucanat or organic sugar
- 1 T. cinnamon
- 1/4 c. unsweetened applesauce
- 1/4 c. non-dairy margarine (i.e. Earth Balance), coconut oil or organic butter, melted
- 1/4 c. real maple syrup
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
If using store bought dough, remove from package and set onto a floured board to rest for approximately 20 minutes.
Prepare a 9-in. cake pan by lightly spritzing it with cooking spray or oil.
Combine cinnamon and sucanat or sugar in a small bowl. You will not use all of this mixture, but you can save the remaining for toast!
Break off 1-2 inch chunks and roll into balls. Roll each ball in cinnamon mixture and set into the bottom of your prepared cake pan. Continue until you’ve used all the dough and the pan is full.
In another bowl, combine applesauce, melted margarine, coconut oil or butter and maple syrup. Pour the syrup mixture over the balls of dough, distributing evenly.
Bake for 25-27 minutes. Allow to cool for several minutes in the pan, then invert pan on top of a large plate to serve.
Use your fingers! (That’s what napkins, and opposable thumbs are for.)
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The winners of the Lunch Punches are:
Judi Putnam, Shannon Taylor, Rebekah, Cathy Vivas, and Dana McKenna.
Please email me your mailing info to peasandthankyou@hotmail.com and I will get your Lunch Punches on their way!
Brilliant! Can’t wait to try it! Good use of pizza dough, never would have thought of it.
You’ll love it! And those monkeys of yours, too.
Pretty sure I’m going to make it for snack after the first day of school.
While this is very good,I wish I could have it..I am diabetic and can’t have the suger or the syrup..My mom made it when we were growing up and would put Hershey’s kisses in them and roll up in a ball…OMG they were so good….Thanks ..
If you are diabetic you can use agave syrup, which has a very low glycemic index and safe for you to use. Also starting to see coconut sugar in the natural food section, has a certain taste for sure, but it’s not unpleasant at all, just different, also safe for diabetics because the glycemic index is so low…hope this offers you some solace! Enjoy your monkeys!
Agave syrup has an incredibly HIGH glycemic index and causes heart palpitations with weekly use. I don’t know WHERE people are getting this misinformation from regarding agave nectar, but you can look right on the bottles: it’s loaded with naturally-occuring fructose, which is always broken down in the body and stored as fat and raises uric acid levels. And because of the risk for heart palpitations, agave should NEVER be given to children!
That said, use xylitol, BAKING truvia (not the packets), or stevia if you can stomach its interesting, unique taste. Another thing to note: DIABETICS: all simple carbohydrates are converted and stored in the body as sugars, so bread products NEVER turn into usable energy. There will always be a crash, except for a few grains like Quinoa and Oatmeal. The problem is that gluten is the molecule which gives bread (especially MONKEY BREAD) that yummy consistency and dexterity, which is why gluten-free alternative flours don’t hold correctly in such recipes.
Let’s recap: DIABETICS: since this recipe will be metabolized as sugar regardless because of the bread, using Agave nectar adds to the dangerous amount of fructose consumed. Use XYLITOL, BAKING TRUVIA, or STEVIA, ONLY. You can calculate Agave’s glycemic index yourself by simply reading the label. All fruit- and succulent-based sweeteners contain fructose. Xylitol is an archiral isomer containing about 35% less calories than sucrose and unlike fructose and sucrose is 100% metabolized because the body needs it and naturally produces it by consuming certain foods, in order to further break down foods in the stomach and mouth (think of your saliva and stomach acids creating an alcohol by-product of organic consumed material). It’s more economical than Stevia, and certainly tastes better. Baking truvia is a combination of Xylitol Rebiana extract – a glycoside from the Rebiana leaf which contains no sugar yet is about 100-200 times sweeter than sugar. It contains no calories and causes no health problems and has no chemical interactions. It’s an excellent sweetener base for xylitol or sugar mixes. However, it has a very chemical-ly flavour in its natural form, which some people detest (including myself). Understand that regular table sugar – organic, raw, or white refined – contains about 50/50 of glucose and fructose, which means it’s only about 50% healthfully metabolized. Synthetic sugar substitutes such as Nutrisweet, Splenda, Acesulfame, Aspartic acid/aspartame, Neosweet – ironically have a worse effect on the body than white refined sugar, because they are highly addictive and contain neurotoxins which lead to other, more serious neurological problems.
A great buy for diabetics if you can get it? Organic DEXTROSE. Dextrose – a sugar derived from corn – is 100% glucose, so there is no crash, and interestingly, GLUCOSE SUGARS DO NOT IMPACT BLOOD GLUCOSE!!! The only caveat is that it must come from CERTIFIED ORGANIC CORN, as genetically modified corn has been linked to G.I. disorders, depression, anxiety, learning disabilities, autism, and reproductive harm in studies performed in European nations, which is why all of them but the UK have banned GMO corn.
‘Hope that helps, diabetics! Enjoy this awesome recipe, and kudos to the author for substituting coconut oil – a medium chain fatty acid that is not only naturally antimicrobial and heart-sustainable for digestive enzymes, but also is a good fat to support brain and heart health. G-D bless!
I meant achiral*, and that coconut oil is HEAT-sustainable.
Thanks for the awesome recipe!
I can’t wait to make these!!!!
I LOVE that Trader Joe’s pizza crust and I also have a fear of those darn pop open containers. Why do they make them like that? 
Looks like you had an amazing day friend! Your pictures and your family keep making me smile. PS- I’m loving the Message!!!!!!!! Thank you for that also.
Your boys are going to love this…I just know it! So glad you are feeling a little more balanced, friend. <3
Let’s be honest, there’s no such thing as healthy monkey bread. The ingredients are natural, but it’s still sugar, butter and dough. This would have to be a very occasional treat.
A violent explosion of dough and those cans..YES! I sometimes feel like I need to wear eye protection before I crack the seal or ear protection or hand protection so I don’t slice my hands on the can’s edge….haha!
Your monkey bread looks soooo good. The buttery pour-shot, mmmm, I want!
Oh yes, sharp can edges are almost equally scary!
Oh my, this ones remind me of a cake my mom used to make when I was little. The buttons were just bigger and filled with plum butter… delicious. Guess what I crave now
?
I have never had monkey bread before. Now I feel like I’ve been missing out!
You are! I bet you could make this with a good gluten free biscuit recipe & it would be divine!
Oh yes please!
Knowing me, I will eat the whole pan before breakfast.
I’ve always wanted to to make monkey bread, because my boyfriend seems to love it, but I just couldn’t get my head around all that… grease.
Oh.my.goodness. I’ve also never heard of monkey bread before…this looks like a glorious indulgent treat! Perfect for the end of summer/beginning of school…or the start of spring in our neck of the woods:) thank you:)
You are welcome! Hope your kiddos love it!
“healthy” and “monkey bread”?!? Awesome. Great idea with the applesauce. I can’t wait to try this. I haven’t had it since I was a kid . . . so delicious!
The biscuit cans weird me out too. How long can they sit there? Love the pizza dough substitute because it is still super easy and dough making free
And being from Maine any maple syrup addition is a good thing.
Ahhhh! I’m not the only one terrified of canned dough?! Thank goodness! I make a version of this for Christmas each year (using frozen dough balls, not the scary stuff) and I would LOVE to serve this much healthier version! We simply must experiment this week!:)
Hope you do & that it’s a hit!
Holy heck – this looks amazing! I will be doing this for a breakfast this week for sure. Mama Pea is in the house for breakfast today for the first day of school – homemade apple cinnamon pancakes from the book. Yum yum – my little guy is gobbling one up now
I have always always wanted to make Monkey Bread. Love how simple it looks!
When I saw the title of this post, I was thinking “I bet I’m the only person on Earth that hasn’t had monkey bread” because I seem to be hearing about it all over the place these days, but then you said your family hasn’t had it either and I didn’t feel so bad. Not a bad way to start the week… might have to make this tonight!
Let me know if you love it as much as I do!
This looks AMAZING! I sadly refused to make monkey bread- all the butter and sugar just seemed unnecessary- so I’m SUPER excited to be able to make it when I have a houseful of people at Thanksgiving and feel good about serving it to them!
Yup, this is going on our holiday breakfast table too!
looks delicioussss! and i have never had monkey bread
Yummmmmmm!!!!!!!!! I’ve never made monkey bread. I don’t think I’ve ever had it, either.
those biscuit cans….scare the bejebus out of me every time i “pop” them open. i scream. it’s like a jack-in-the-box in dough form.
pizza dough is the clear answer to all this.
BUT. i make gorilla bread. stuff those little dough balls with cream cheese (or really stuff them with anything – chocolate, jam, fruit, etc) and omg. sugar coma all morning. but for special occasions i think it’s warranted.
Now THAT sounds insanely good.
ooohhhhhh yuuuuuuuum. Can’t wait to try this! I think I will use my go-to pizza dough recipe that has oat flour in it. A bit more work on my part, but still good!
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the show on Food Network called “Chopped,” but they start with 4 cooks and give them 4 mostly unrelated ingredients and they have a certain amount of time in which to make a restaurant-quality dish from them. On one show, there was a cook from Britain, and one of the ingredients was canned biscuit dough. She couldn’t figure out how to open the can and wasted most of her cooking time trying to figure it out. She got eliminated in the first round.
You just had to put “healthy” in there didn’t you? Now I’, not sure there’s a reason not to make this…
Your pictures are looking awesome — I just love the second one!!
Thanks Rebecca–quality over quantity pretty much rings true for everything.
When I was Gigi’s age, we got a bread machine and in the recipe book that came with it, there was cheesy monkey bread. I begged and begged my mom to make it. And by that I mean, I held the book in my hand while jumping on the couch (like a monkey) yelling “cheesy monkey breeeeeeeeead” over and over again.
Sadly, we never made it (I wonder why) and we lost the recipe book. Please come up with a GF savory monkey bread! I’ll love you forever.
MOOONKEEY BREEEAD! MMM! what a wonderfully surprising recipe on a Monday morning! keep rockin!
But it’s Tuesday
darn holiday week! but my thinking that it’s Monday will definitely make the week go by faster! LOL
Oh my heck…those peel cans give the the worst anxiety. I almost can’t even read about your description up there. Your version sounds much more sane and peaceful. I’m all in.
Sorry to make you cringe. Wish I could promise it’ll be the last time.
Just yesterday I was saying that I needed a recipe to use up that leftover applesauce I have in the fridge – presto! This might be the lure to get everyone out of bed on time tomorrow on time for the 2nd day of school.
Any advice for homemade gluten-free pizza dough? Would it just be bobs red mill all purpose + egg + something else? Or much more complicated than that? Thanks Sarah!
I’m totally working on this one, Justine. Bob’s Red Mill has a gluten-free pizza dough mix, but I haven’t tried it. Wish I had better advice…maybe someone else does and can leave a comment here?
Never had monkey bread….shame on you!
I love that you used applesauce in your recipe. This would be a great Christmas morning treat!
I’m planning on it for Christmas too!
YUM! I love Monkey Bread, but haven’t figured out a way to make a healthy version, i.e. haven’t had it in years. I’m on my way to make this right now! Thanks for letting me know I’m not the only one with a fear of the POP!
Let me know how you like it, Amy!
I absolutely HATE refridgerated dough!! My husband makes fun of me each time I have to use the dreaded can. He also gets tired of opening them for me. So glad that someone else understands!
Yum! I’d never heard of monkey bread until my parents moved from Ontario, Canada to Kentucky. I love it and I love you for making a healthier version! How sneaky of you to add the applesauce in there. I am definitely pinning this to make on Thanksgiving & Christmas morning!!!
Hope you enjoy it, Andrea!
I never made monkey bread either, so yes, my 10 year old son never had it too. Truthfully, I never had monkey bread either… Besides not being able to eat yeasted things (I can’t digest yeast), I didn’t grew up here in the US, so it wasn’t part of our foods in Brazil, and most of all there is the fact that I too am not a fan of the canned biscuits/bread.
But this looks so good, I will definitely make it next weekend. I am sure my son will love this one!
This weekend though I also made a “first” at our home, after my son declared that he never had french toast I made it for breakfast on labor day, he really enjoyed and I crossed that one off my list, not onto that monkey bread recipe I go!
Ana
If he likes French toast, he’ll be loving this! (fingers crossed)
I cannot wait to make this!
“Oh, I bet you want me to peel here.”
Hahaha! This actually made me laugh out loud. I can’t wait to make this!
I have never thought about using pizza dough…just brilliant.
I have made my own vegan biscuit dough and rolled it, but this takes a bit of the work out of it.
Congrats to your family for finally getting a hold of the goodness that is monkey bread.
I too have a phobia of those canisters. 95% of the time, peeling never results in the proper popping of the canister so I have to whack it on the counter which is almost more terrifying. It’s like a jack in the box, carb-edition.
Coconut oil on monkey bread might be my new favorite combination!
Seriously. You won’t be disappointed!
That is so inventive – I love how you used pizza dough!
Yummers. I love your cookbook!
Thanks! I love yours too.
wow. i wish i could magically make it appear now, but i guess i will have to drag myself shopping for the ingreds instead….i am making this ASAP.
Your baby wants it. Listen to him.
OMG so terrifying. Scariest things when I was little: Jack-in-theBoxes (mine was a clown, doubly scary. WHY is that a kid’s toy???), those pop cans, AND (if you can believe it) the toaster! Specifically the toaster at my grandma’s house. All completely anxiety-producing. It’s a wonder I’m halfway normal. A kid could be driven to stuff monkey bread into her face!
Oh my gosh, no joke. Jack-in-the-boxes are BANNED from this house.
LOVE this! I have a habit of hoarding Trader Joe’s pizza dough (you never know when you’ll need to bake 6 pizzas at once, right?), so I am definitely making this recipe.
Do you freeze it? Because I’m a hoarder also and am constantly moving the bags to and fro’ the freezer.
Yep. I smash the dough into flat disks and throw ‘em in the freezer. Sometimes I’ll even divide them into 4 or 8 individual servings for those times when I don’t want to make a whole pizza. The TJ’s dough seems to hold up pretty well to the freezing process in my experience.
As if I needed a reason to love your blog anymore!!! I love Monkey Bread!! I used to make it with my mom all the time, its the best!! I can’t believe its been at least 2 years (actually probably more) since I’ve made it. mmmm soooo making this!! Thank you!!
Thank goodness there is someone else out there who fears those pop cans!!! Terrifying. Absolutely terrifying
GENIUS with the applesauce! Ditto for the pizza dough instead of biscuits!
Thanks for the yummy recipe! Hope your “monkeys” had a successful day of school (G) and a house to herself (L)
Say, if you take a B12 supplement, which type do you take. Thanks!
L actually starts kindergarten next week. Wahhhhhhh! And Gigi’s first day is tomorrow. I don’t take a B12 supp., just nooch and I’ve been incorporating some organic dairy as well.
Oh. Oh Mama Pea. Thank you. I’ve been drooling over monkey bread recently but I just can’t seem to get over that step in the recipe “cut store bought biscuits into quarters with kitchen shears.” What? That’s nasty.
Those look heavenly! I’ve never had monkey bread either, I think I need to fix this!
SOOO funny…I love the belly button analogy and your description of canned biscuit terror!
Oh, and the monkey bread looks delicious!!!
Why oh why do you make it all look so simple? I’ve avoided monkey bread all of my life, but now I have to try it!!!
My kids would love this! Definitely have to try it for them!
We love monkey bread for Christmas morning too! We’ve stepped it up a notch per a recipe I read years ago: Cut a block of cream cheese (non-dairy would be fine too, I’m sure) into cubes. Wrap each piece of dough around a cube, make everything else as usual, and bake. Sometimes the cream cheese oozes out of the “belly buttons” (LOVE that name for them!) – which makes it even more yummy! I love your healthy monkey bread recipe and can’t wait to try it!
Hi there! Im a mum-of-3 from St Andrews, Scotland and I have just made these for an after sailing “shivery bite”…trust me, you dont go near the water in Scotland without the promise of a pretty amazing snack (and a wet suit)….anyway they are completely and utterly amazing…Id go paddling any night of the week for these… thank you!! xx
Oh good! I’m so glad you had success!
I was so excited to try this. I have a friend who makes monkey bread all the time and I just can’t bring myself to make it like she does (can dough, gobs of butter, etc). Soooo I made your recipe today and the whole wheat flavor of the dough was overpowering
My kids are used to whole wheat…it’s all we eat around here. The 16oz of dough wasn’t enough to fill my 9inch cake pan so I moved down to the 8inch pan and still not enough. It was way too much sauce too…please tell me I did something wrong. I love your cookbook!
Did you use the Trader Joe’s dough or your own recipe? We made it just as I directed and loved it! Our sauce to dough ratio was spot on. Sorry you were disappointed.
I used the pizza dough setting on my bread maker…500g flour….and it was a perfect amount…
Thanks so much for this healthy spin on Monkey Bread. My 14 year-old discovered this breakfast treat at a sleepover, and thinks it’s “to die for!” (Considering the ingredients, that may literally be true.) I’m glad we can indulge her without sending tons of butter and sugar into her system. This sounds like a great item to bring to ballet auditions next weekend!
My dream birthday cake is a coconut layer cake. Yum.
My birthday cake would be half-and-half – because I clearly can’t choose just one!
Half carrot cake with cream cheese icing and half chocolate with peanut butter ANYTHING. YUM
Angel food cake with heath bar frosting!
When I was small, my grand mother and mom used to give me their leftover scraps of pizza dough or bread dough and let me roll it out and sprinkle butter and cinnamon sugar on it and then roll it into whatever shape I wanted , then bake. We always thought it was the greatest tasting treat and I treasure those memories! Now I let my kids do the same thing with the store bought dough when they want to help in the kitchen and they love it too!
so maybe our store bought dough is a little different…it will still be delish–thank you!
I have this recipe in the oven right now. My daughter keeps looking in the oven to check if they are done cause they smell so good! I had trouble with the ratio of dough to the pan but I`m in Canada and don`t have to access to TJ`s
Are “healthy” and “monkey bread” allowed in the same sentence?? What a great idea to use pizza dough! Excited to try these!
Yum I used to love monkey bread!! Especially with walnuts mixed in the glaze, I could eat the whole pan back in the day. Now maybe I will bring them back into my diet with your healthy recipe
My husband would love this. Looooove it.
Now I know what I’m getting next time I’m at Trader Joe’s!
Today i made this exactly as the recipe said except using your homemade pizza dough recipe along with a betty crocker pizza crust mix. I had to use the mix too because the homemade version didn’t make enough. While the mix worked quite nicely, the homemade version came out dense. Any ideas to what I did worng or do you just have to use trader joe pizza dough?
At what step with the homemade dough did you add the applesauce mixture? Did you let it rise first?
I made sure to let it rise but it didn’t rise that much. I think I had the water too hot when i added the yeast.
Do you have this recipe available with images on a PDF file that I can print & save?
If you click on the “print this recipe” link, it will take you to a printer friendly version.
Hey hey!! I made these last weekend and everybody loved them. I rolled the balls way too big (they also had to sit in my car for a 20 minute drive before being put in the oven..sure that didn’t help). They were delicious! I’m actually making them on Wednesday night for an encore
Thanks for sharing!
Oh, also, I wanted to try out Earth Balance because of your blog. I’m not really a butter connoisseur (honestly can’t tell the difference between butter and margarine) so I really didn’t care either way, but my husband LOVED it. It’s the only margarine we buy now! So thanks for that too
Finally made these this morning, as it is a bit nippy outside & my son is battling ear infections, so we all needed a warm treat! These were oh so delicious! Thank you, thank you, thank you for coming up with something that I love, won’t make, and crave from time to time into a breakfast/ snack that I will be happy to make occasionally. My daughter’s friend raved about them also! You could tell he was trying to be polite & not eat too many pieces! Thank you for this, all of your other scrumptious recipes & plans, and mostly for your blog. Sometimes when days aren’t going well and tempers are on short fuses, it’s nice to read about another Mom having everyday issues with her family and that it is all OK and it all should be cherished. After I laugh (and maybe shed a tear), I am able to happily face my children again & attempt to be the best Mommy I know how to be. Thank you.
I don’t have applesauce. Do you think this would work without it? Or a 1/4 C of canned pumpkin instead? Thanks!
Oh my gosh, I love that idea! I think it would probably work great. Let me know if you try it!
Yeah I’ve been CRAVING pumpking lately, and I thought Pumpkin Monkey Bread plus your Pumpkin Latte recipe you sent me would make a PERFECT Saturday morning brunch! You’re the best!!
Hi Mama Pea!
I made the pumpkin version this morning, exactly as stated. I used the whole wheat Trader Joe’s dough, as pictured, but…it came out super dense. I like it, but I was picturing a more fluffy version…like the real monkey bread. I know it’s the healthy version…but does the dough ever rise and get fluffy? My b.f. does not approve
Did you let the dough rest for 20 minutes before making it? I can’t imagine what happened.
Yes, I did let it rest. I live by the beach, so maybe the humidity didn’t let it rise as needed?
Apparently, this only serves 3 really hungry monkeys in our house! (I don’t know if that’s even something I want known about us!) And that was following a very filling meal of vegan fondue with all sorts of dip-ins. =) Still, it did take us a couple of hours to polish off the plate. AND, my son says he wants me to make this for his birthday treat for his 2nd grade classroom. =D
I’m so happy to hear that, Rochelle! Thanks for the awesome feedback.
As promised, I made two batches of monkey bread for my son’s class to celebrate his birthday. I used this pizza dough recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/amazing-whole-wheat-pizza-crust/ and can’t recommend it enough. It was super easy to make and others have made it completely whole wheat (from the comments), though I didn’t. I did make a double batch and used half the total salt. –It worked perfectly! It appears as though one batch of the dough is the same as one bag of TJ’s dough.
The flavors of monkey bread I made are the regular and pumpkin. For the pumpkin, I noticed someone saying it came out dense. To be on the safe side (not knowing if density of the pumpkin was an issue), I thinned the pumpkin puree with some flax milk. I used pumpkin pie spice for the seasoning in that one.
Final results: wonderfully risen, tasty treats that received rave reviews from all of the ~35 students (1st and 2nd grade class combined, in case you were wondering) who had a bite of each flavor, and the teachers and administration as well! So, brava to you (and me too, I suppose!)!
Rochelle, thank so much for reporting back. I love the pumpkin variation and I love even more that kiddos and teachers were happily fed! So yes, indeed, brava to you!
My friend posted on Facebook this morning that she was making Monkey Bread. My pregnant self got fixated on it, but my first instinct was to look for a healthier version. The first few I clicked required making dough from scratch… I didn’t have the patience for that today. Made this with my two year old and it definitely hit the spot – and was a hit with the whole family. THANK YOU! I also love that this yields less than the ‘regular’ version… so it won’t be hanging around as long tempting me (though I did buy a second crust and threw it in the freezer for later…).
I’m so glad you, your kiddo and your other, tinier kiddo all loved it! Blessings to you for a healthy remainder of your pregnancy!
Just so happened to stumble upon your blog today. As I was reading I noticed the name of (I’m assuming) your girls…Gigi and Lulu. Thought it was funny because those are my girls’ nicknames! I read it to them and they sure got a kick out of it.