13 Secret Sauce: Cream Cheese Stuffed Pull Apart Monkey Bread

Monkey bread, also called monkey puzzle bread, sticky bread, African coffee cake, golden crown, pinch-me cake, bubble loaf or monkey brains. It is a sweet, sticky, gooey pastry served in the United States for breakfast. It consists of pieces of soft bread with cinnamon sprinkled on it. Recipes for the bread first appeared in American women's magazines and community cookbooks in the 1950s, and the dish is still virtually unknown outside the United States. The bread is made with pieces of sweet yeast dough (often frozen) which are baked in a cake pan at high heat after first being individually covered in melted butter, cinnamon, sugar and chopped pecans. It is traditionally served hot so that the baked segments can be easily torn away with the fingers and eaten by hand.
(Source- Wikipedia)

I was so enthusiastic when I first found this bread, always wanted to make it from the scratch. it generally uses frozen dough but I am making a buttermilk bread dough and filling it with soft cream cheese to give this authentic recipe an interesting twist.

Serve: 4- 6
Preparation time: 2 hours 30 minutes

Ingredients:

All-purpose flour: 3 cups (Or I used multigrain bread flour)
Salt: 1 teaspoon
Active yeast: 2 teaspoons
Fat-free milk: 1 cup very warm (120° to 130°)
Lemon Juice: 2 tablespoon
Honey: 3-4 tablespoon
Olive oil: 2 tablespoon
Granulated brown sugar: 1 cup
Cinnamon powder: 2 tablespoon
Butter: 4 tablespoon (melted)
Less-fat cream cheese: 100 grams
Walnut: 1/2 cup (roughly chopped)

Method:

1) Mix salt, flour and active yeast in a large bowl. Warm the milk and add lemon juice, honey and olive oil to it.
2) Knead it using your hand or a food processor until soft but not sticky, add more warm water if required. 3) Place dough in a large bowl coated with cooking spray, turning to coat top. Cover and let rise in a warm place for an hour or until doubled in size

4) Mix cinnamon and sugar together in a small bowl. Melt butter in another bowl.
5) Once the dough is ready after rise, put it on a floured surface. Punch dough down; divide into 6 equal portions.

6) Working with one portion at a time (cover remaining dough to prevent drying), roll into a 6-inch rope. Cut each dough rope into 6 equal pieces, shaping each piece into a 2-inch ball.
7) Roll the ball flat in 3 inches round circle. Brush it with butter and spread 1/2 teaspoon of the cinnamon sugar mixture over it.

8) Put 1 teaspoon of cream cheese in the center of the round and close the flat rolled dough to make a ball.

9) Dip each ball again in butter turning to coat, and roll in sugar mixture.
10) Coat a 12-cup Bundt pan with cooking spray. Spread the chopped walnut at the base and layer it up with the stuffed balls. Repeat procedure with remaining 5 dough ropes. Sprinkle any remaining sugar mixture and butter over the dough.

11) Cover and let rise in a warm place for an hour or until almost doubled in size.
12) Preheat oven to 180 degree Celsius.
13) Bake at 180° C for 25 minutes or until golden. Cool 5 minutes on a wire rack. Place a plate upside down on top of bread; invert onto plate.