Who's the Monkey Now

If you recall from my 1st post about my beloved grandfather, I mentioned how difficult he can be at time, in fact most of the time. Well, this week he accused me of neglect.... Yeah, he claims that I have neglected his request for Monkey Bread. I, honestly, don't remember him asking, but only suggesting it as something new for me to try and make.With that said I set myself out to make some Monkey Bread for my pawpaw this weekend.

I remember Monkey Bread, or pull-apart bread, to be a round circle of small dinner rolls all lumped together from which we would all pull pieces and dip them in melted butter. The one distinction, I remember, from dinner rolls was that Monkey Bread was a tad bit sweeter than the normal dinner roll. When doing some background research, again it proved to be difficult to trace the origin of Monkey Bread. Food historians say the first peoples to make sweet, buttery rolls with cinnamon were ancient Middle Eastern cooks. These recipes and spices traveled to Europe in the Middle Ages with crusaders, travelers, traders and explorers. Recipes varied according to culture and cuisine, but the concept remained stable.

When searching for a recipe, most of the recipes I came across were all for the traditional cinnamon recipe, and because I was making for my pawpaw, it had to be the way he wanted. I simply took a traditional recipe and scrape the cinnamon and sugar mixture, only rolling the dough in melted butter before placing them in the bundt pan.

It came out beautiful, and delicious. The best part was hearing my pawpaw rave about how good it tasted. He was so happy that I made it for him that he promised to never talk shit again (his words not mine). I impressed myself so much that I made a cinnamon Monkey Bread for some friends the following day. It also came out spectacular, and everyone enjoyed it. So to my pawpaw who doubted me......Who's the Monkey, now?! LOL.