Monkey Bread in a Jar {or Cinnamon Sugar “Pull-Apart” Bread}

Have you guys seen Shaina’s new cookbook, Desserts in Jars, yet?! It’s pretty fabulous.

The concept is simple….sweets served in mason jars! I love it….especially because I am obsessed with mason jars. If you were in my kitchen right now and opened up my cupboard all you would see are mason jars. I bought a set of 25 of them recently at the hardware store for, like, ten bucks. You’d also see a slew of random mugs missing their handles since I am the clumsiest person alive.

But that’s beside the point. How cute are these little monkey breads baked right in mason jars?! I just love them. Before now, I’d never even though to actually bake in a glass jar. But these! Oh my, are they cute…and delicious, too! Ooey gooey pieces of pastry glazed in cinnamon sugar in a neat little personal sized jar.

See that dark syrup on the bottom of the jar above? That’s pure caramelized cinnamon sugar, baby, and that’s what I’m talkin’ about.

Okay, let’s talk again now about how I am the clumsiest person alive. And how I also obviously don’t follow instructions well. Shaina CLEARLY wrote “DO NOT FILL THE JARS ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP WITH THE PASTRY DOUGH”.

Yet….I just couldn’t help myself.

So then this happened in my oven.

That’s right: monkey bread explosion. In my oven. All over my baking sheet. A volcano, if you will, of sweet cinnamony pastry dough! And you know I had to eat all the scraps that didn’t make the final cut. Crumbs like this don’t have calories, didn’t you know?

Oh, you didn’t know?

Well now you do. Amen.

You guys are going to love this….and you’ll love the cookbook even more! It’s just full of party-perfect dessert recipes.

Happy Monday!

Monkey Bread in a Jar

from Desserts in Jars

Print this Recipe!

Ingredients:

12 tbsp butter

1 cup milk, heated to about 110 degrees F

1/3 cup water, heated to about 110 degrees F

1/4 cup sugar

1 (1/4th oz) package dry active yeast

3 cups flour

2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground cardamom

1 cup brown sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp nutmeg

Directions:

Combine the warm milk, water, yeast and sugar in a mixing bowl. Let sit for five minutes. Be sure here that your water and milk are not TOO hot (temperature should feel like warm bath water). Liquid that is too hot will kill the yeast!

Meanwhile, whisk together the flour, salt and cardamom together in another bowl. After five minutes, add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix on medium high speed using a dough hook attachment for about eight minutes, or until dough becomes a smooth ball. Alternately, you can do this by hand. Just keep kneading the dough until it becomes smooth and elastic.

Spray a bowl with cooking spray and place your dough ball inside. Cover with a dish towel or plastic wrap and set in a warm spot to rise for about an hour. You want the ball to double in size. (I let my dough rise for 1.5 hours since my house was a little cool that morning).

After the initial rise, roll out dough to a large rectangle. Using a kitchen scissors, cut one inch squares of dough out of the rectangle.

Melt four tablespoons of the butter and use it to grease eight 8-oz glass jars (OR four 12-oz mason jars).

Melt the remaining butter and pour it into a small bowl. In another small bowl, mix together the brown sugar, nutmeg and cinnamon. Dunk each square of dough in the melted butter and then into the brown sugar. Drop it into a greased glass jar. Fill each jar only half way full then set the jars in a warm spot to rise for another 50 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Place jars on a baking sheet two inches apart and bake for 25 minutes, or until dough has cooked through. Serve warm!

Time:

2.5 hours