What Is Butterscotch Monkey Bread?

Butterscotch monkey bread is a popular brunch food usually made using packaged products such as frozen, unbaked rolls and pudding mix. These items, along with a mixture of brown sugar, butter, cinnamon and sometimes chopped nuts, are placed into a tube or bundt cake pan and left to sit out on a table or counter top overnight. The thawed, risen rolls with the sauce ingredients are then baked before being inverted onto a plate and served warm.

Since the mixture is baked in a tall pan, the finished result is a high-sided mound shape. Unlike most coffee cakes or sweet breads that are cut with a knife into serving sized slices, butterscotch monkey bread is pulled apart. The separate bread rolls used in the recipe allow for them to separate easily. The butterscotch flavored syrupy coating that is warm and gooey makes the fluffy, baked rolls taste more like cake than bread. Children and adults alike typically enjoy this breakfast bread.

While some monkey bread recipes call for brown sugar and cinnamon to be sprinkled onto the frozen rolls at the same time as the butterscotch pudding mix, others require a sauce to be made. The brown sugar, cinnamon and butter are heated together in a sauce pan until the mixture is bubbly. It's then poured over the butterscotch monkey bread before baking. In the other method, the butter is melted separately and poured over the rolls, cinnamon and brown sugar in the tall cake pan.

The tube or bundt pan should always be greased before the frozen bread rolls are added. This is necessary so the yeast-based rolls don't stick to the pan as they thaw and rise. Typically, butterscotch monkey bread takes about 30 minutes to bake in the middle rack of an oven at moderate heat. It's important to place the cake pan containing the ingredients onto a cookie sheet before placing into the oven in case the butterscotch and sugar mixture flows over the pan's top.

Chopped nuts are a popular but optional addition to butterscotch monkey bread. Almonds, walnuts or cashews are common choices. Some bakers also like to add butterscotch-flavored baking chips to the recipe to increase the flavor of the monkey bread. Another possible addition is a little orange juice and/or grated orange peel. The breakfast bread tends to go well with coffee, milk or juice.