Golden Monkey Day

“It’s happy fake Persian-holiday day. It’s the time of the year when we celebrate (possibly) Kublai Khan (maybe) and the Golden Horde leaving Persia. Kublai’s symbol was a golden monkey (don’t quote me on that, I’ll have to Wikipedia it) and so to celebrate, we have monkey bread (speculatively.)

So to celebrate, a Vietnamese girl made something we’re not quite sure is actually anything but American.

-Jacob


That was the intro my boyfriend sent out in honor of our "holiday". Ever since I told him I'll cook for the holidays, there has been an exponential increase to the number of holidays that we celebrate. ie Golden Monkey Day, Arbor Day, Wow the Sky is Blue Day, and our favorite, I'm Glad We Have Clean Undies Day. In honor of the Golden Monkey Day, let there be Monkey Bread!

Ingredients:

3-4 cans of homestyle or buttermilk biscuits
2 cups white sugar
2 tbsp cinnamon
1/2 cup butter or 1 stick of butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
1 cup chopped walnuts (optional)
1/2 cup of heavy cream (optional)

Icing: 2 cups of powdered sugar and 2 tbsp of vanilla extract.


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and butter the baking pan. I use a 9 inch round baking pan, but bundt cake pan or even a loaf pan would work.

In a large Ziploc bag or a brown paper bag, mix the white sugar and cinnamon together till it is thoroughly mix. Roll the bag around or shake for a minute and it should do the trick.

Take the biscuits and cut them into quarters. Roll each quarter into a ball and put it into the sugar/cinnamon mix. The ball does not have to be precise. As long as the pizza slice shape is not recognizable, then it's okay. After you have about 10-12 balls in the bag, close it up and shake until each dough piece is coated with the cinnamon/sugar mix. Take the sugared dough balls and place it into the baking pan. Sprinkle the dough with the chopped walnuts if you are using nuts. Continue till all of the dough is rolled, coated, and put into it's final resting place.

In a small sauce pan, melt the butter over med heat. Once the butter is melted, stir in the brown sugar until fully incorporated. Let this boil for a minute and then stir in the heavy cream. Remember you have to stir it to make keep it smooth. Remove the pot from the heat and add the vanilla extract. The cream will give this a more caramel taste. You can emit it if you choose to. Pour the entire mixture over the dough.

Bake this for about 30-34 minutes.

While the bread is baking, we will go ahead and make the icing. The icing is a very simple recipe. I use the same one for cinnamon buns. Take about 2 cups of powdered sugar and put it into a small zip-lock bag (this will help in the drizzling part later on). Add to it 2 tbsp on vanilla extract. Close the zip lock bag and use your fingers to incorporate the vanilla into the sugar. If the mixture is too thick, add 1/2 tbsp of water. The icing should be thin enough to easily move around, but not runny.

Once the bread is done, cut a corner off of the the icing bag and drizzle it all over the bread. The heat will melt the icing, but it will set as the bread cools. Let the bread cool for 20 minutes and serve (hopefully with a glass of milk)!

Once it is done, drizzle the icing on top of the monkey bread and the icing will set as the bread cools.

HAPPY GOLDEN MONKEY DAY!!!