Monkey Bubble Bread

I came across this interesting bread recipe in one of the books I bought online last year. In fact it was the name, "Monkey Bubble Bread"  that intrigued me. I googled to find out about the origin of the term but there wasn't any . It is also known by a string of names - sticky bread, African Coffee cake(there's no coffee used), golden crown, pinch-me-cake, bubble loaf and monkey brains! This bread is sticky, gooey and sweet and is eaten in the United States for breakfast. In fact one does not eat it in slices but pinch off from the whole loaf, hence one of the terms - 'pinch-me-cake'.

Ingredients (Adapted from Baked Explorations)

For bread dough:

1 1/4 cup milk
2 teaspoons instant yeast

4 cups plain flour
5 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 egg, lightly beaten
70g unsalted butter, melted

For the Cinnamon sugar coating:

1  cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon powder
125g unsalted butter, melted


1. Grease a 10-inch bundt pan. Set aside.

2. Warm milk to slightly room temperature and add yeast and whisk to mix well.

3. Place flour, sugar and salt in a mixing bowl and use a paddle to mix well.

4. At low speed, mix in beaten egg till combined.

5. Slowly stream in milk and mix till combined. Then add melted butter.

6. Replace paddle with dough hook and continue to mix on medium speed for about ten minutes. if dough is too wet, add a little flour. If it's too dry, add a little water.

7. Remove dough, roll into a ball and place it in a greased bowl, covered with plastic wrap. Let it prove for an hour or till dough double its size.

8. Prepare sugar coating by mixing cinnamon powder and sugar in a bowl. Melt butter and let it cool.

9. After proving, remove dough and punch out air. Pinch or cut with scissors the dough to roll into  4cm diameter balls. Balls need not be perfectly round. There should be about 50 to 60 dough balls depending on the size.

10. Dip each dough ball into the melted butter, drain excess butter and roll into the sugar mixture.
Place balls in the bundt pan in the manner of building a wall.

11.Cover the bundt pan with plastic wrap and prove for one hour or till dough balls have doubled in size.

12. Bake in preheated oven 180 deg C for about 30 minutes.

13. Cool bread for 5 minutes before turning it out onto a serving platter and serve warm.

Cinnamon sugar

Proving in progress in the bundt!

Out of the oven!

What a crown??

Pinch me now!