Maple Monkey Bread

So it's been a while since I last posted - life has a habit of getting in the way of my virtual musings, however today is one of those bleak British April days when you wonder whether spring has been decommissioned and we are going to skip straight from winter to summer.

There is nothing to do - or rather nothing one feels inclined to do - except watch old films and carb-load. The morning drifts aimlessly into the afternoon, which meanders without purpose into the evening, via copious quantities of tea. Outside, it is dark, dank and one could be forgiven for thinking we have gone back in time to January. In fact, I think this year, January may have been warmer. 

It seems almost inconceivable that not four weeks ago a hosepipe ban came into force, the smell of barbecues hung in the air and I spent entire saturdays pottering in the garden with the spring sunlight glinting on my vampirically pale, sun-starved skin. 

I do remember one distinctly dull day in January when the only thing that was able to radiate some warmth into the house was a burnished and bronzed ring of Monkey Bread baking in the oven. The recipe I used actually makes the bread with proper yeast, flour, butter and for a rich, sweet, bosky resin note, a slurp of Maple Syrup. Many recipes you will find merely advise you to open the can of brioche dough/biscuit dough/bread dough. I have never tried using this method because something in me baulks at buying dough when it is so easy to make. But if you want to try the cheat approach, by all means do. 

Recipes with numerous steps and stages of resting and rising lend themselves well to adding structure to days like today. So for those of you who are feeling in need of some inner warmth, purpose and sweet, soul-nourishing sustenance to accompany the tea and movies, try this!

Maple Monkey Bread (adapted from a recipe on The Pink Whisk)

Ingredients:

500g Strong White Flour
1 tsp Cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp Salt
55g Butter, cold, chopped into dice
2 Eggs, beaten
2 tbsp Maple Syrup
15g Dried Yeast (3 tsp)
175ml Milk (approx)

Sugar coating:
150g Caster Sugar
2 tsp Cinnamon

Sauce:
200g Butter
100g Dark Brown Sugar

2 tbsp Maple Syrup

1. Warm the milk in a small saucepan until it is just warm (blood temperature).
2. Mix 2 tbsp of the warmed milk with the yeast and mix to a smoothish paste. Put to one side.
3. Next, prepare the flour - sift together with the salt and cinnamon into a large bowl.
4. Add the butter cubes and rub in to resemble breadcrumbs.
5. Add eggs, Maple Syrup, yeast and milk paste and enough milk to make a dough (depends on absorbancy of your flour so difficult too be precise).
6. Tip dough onto a lightly floured surface and knead for about 8-10 minutes.
7. Place into an oiled bowl, cover and place somewhere warm to double in size, approx 1.5 hrs.

8. Next, you need to tip it out, knead it again lightly, them chop it into nuggets. The easiest way to do this is to roll it into a sausage and chop it into little pillows, about an inch cubed. don't be too precise or make it too even - it adds to the alure!
9. Once you have all your pieces, pop them into the bowl and scatter the sugar and cinnamon coating over it - make sure it is evenly distributed and each little pillow has a sandy sugary coating.

10. Transfer the doughy pillows to a greased kugelhopf ring. You really do need a ring pan for this to get an even distribution of heat to all the pieces. Let the pieces rise one last time for about an hour.
11. About 20 minutes before you are ready to bake the bread, preheat the oven to 200 degrees centigrade (180 fan). Start the sauce by adding 200g butter to 100g dark brown sugar and Maple Syrup. Melt and stir until the sugar has dissolved.
12. The doughballs should now have doubled in size - pour the hot sauce all over them, then stick them in the oven for about 40 minutes (check after 35).

You might need to make a foil 'lid' to pop over the pan about half way through, to stop them catching.
13. Once 40 mins is up, take out from the oven and allow to cool for a few minutes before attempting to turn out - but don't leave it too long or you will have a job getting it out of the tin. 

I found the easiest way to do this was the plate on top, then flip (you will need oven gloves so take care!).
14. Stand back in admiration at the gorgeous, toffee, chewy, chrunchy, dribbly mass that stands before you. 

The best things about this are that the caramelisation varies between setting to a hard toffee, to pooling into delicious slicks of molten lusciousness; and that it is positively bad form to eat this any other way than for each diner to rip off the scented nuggets of sticky heaven.