- [Babish] This episode of Basics
is sponsored by Bright Cellars,
a monthly wine club that matches you with fine wine
you'll love and delivers it right to your door.
Bright Cellars is offering you 50% off
your first six bottle box, plus a bonus bottle of wine
when you take their seven question tastes palette quiz
at the link in the description.
More on that later, cause today we're making monkey bread.
Let's get down to basics.
(upbeat theme music)
All right, so monkey bread obviously starts with bread.
And for the job I can't think of anything better
than an enriched buttery brioche style loaf.
So in the bowl of a stand mixer, we are combining
500 grams of bread flour, 7 grams of instant yeast,
50 grams of sugar and 10 grams of kosher salt.
Give that a tiny whisk until it is nice and homogenous.
Then we're adding 100 grams of whole milk
and 200 grams of water, both tepid in temperature.
Affix dough hooks and knead until combined
and relatively smooth, about two minutes.
Then unfortunately, I'm gonna have to switch over
to my metal bowl because the last one was too wide.
So I'm sorry, you can't see what's going on.
But with the mixer running on medium speed,
I'm adding 85 grams of unsalted room temperature butter,
one small piece at a time, allowing each piece
to fully incorporate into the dough before adding the next.
Then I'm kneading for six minutes until the dough is smooth
and supple and not too sticky.
Oh, that's still too sticky.
Should take anywhere from six to eight minutes
and you should end up with a dough that's smooth
and supple and definitely still sticky, but handle able.
Once we get it there, we're turning it out
onto an un-floured countertop
and stretching it into a taut ball.
It shouldn't stick to the countertop, but it should want to.
Then we're dropping it in a lightly greased bowl,
covering with plastic wrap
and letting rest at room temperature
for one to two hours until doubled in size.
Then so we don't introduce any more flour
into the situation, I like to work with this dough
on a lightly oiled countertop,
with lightly oiled hands for good measure.
Turn out the dough, punch it down as life so often does.
Then we're going to roll and stretch it
out into a long-ish oblong-ish shape for easy cutting.
Monkey bread is, after all, a tear and share bread.
So we needed to divide this into evenly sized balls.
And then because we want these balls to have both
a consistent size and shape, we're going to roll them
against the countertop, stretching their tops taught.
This is going to help give our monkey bread
that nice classic bubbly look.
The size of your balls is going to depend
on the form factor of your monkey bread.
For this first batch I'm doing
individual monkey bread muffins,
so pretty small around 30 grams each.
And I'm thinking for breakfast
ham and cheese might be nice.
So I'm going to make a sort of Monte Cristo monkey bread,
chopping up about four ounces of ham
and shredding up about four ounces of Gruyere
and mixing them together in preparation for assembly.
Then to assemble, I've got some big old muffin cups here.
I'm grabbing four or five dough balls,
however many I can fit in each cup and giving them a toss
in melted, cooled butter before arranging them in the cups.
You don't wanna overfill these,
cause they're probably going to grow by about 50%
during the first rise.
Then we're topping each with a generous pile
of our ham and cheese mixture.
Covering with plastic wrap and letting rest
at room temperature for another 45 minutes
until not quite doubled in size, but nice and puffy.
Rip off the plastic wrap and pop this guy
in a preheated 350 degree Fahrenheit oven
for about 25 to 30 minutes, rotating halfway through
until it's nice and golden brown
and its thickest point registers 200 degrees Fahrenheit.
Let cool for 10 minutes before removing from the tin,
dusting with powdered sugar
and topping with a big old dollop of raspberry jam.
Now monkey bread is traditionally a tear and share.
So I know having an individual version might be
kind of silly, but in addition to tasting really,
really good let's face facts.
It's cute, it's cute.
And there's no way you're going to convince me otherwise.
That being said, let's make a good old fashioned
tear and share style loaf.
Same dough recipe, but this time we're divvying it up
into slightly larger balls, 50 grams
or about the size of a golf ball.
And then these guys are getting
the herb and garlic butter treatment.
You can use whatever herbs you like.
I'm going with chives, parsley and dill,
chopped up nice and fine and mixed together
with about eight ounces of melted and cooled butter.
We're also going to add three or four cloves
of crushed, fresh garlic, tiny whisk everybody together.
Try not to eat this whole bowl with a spoon.
Spray down a non-stick loaf pan with non-stick spray.
Give these guys a bath in garlic herb butter
and arrange in the pan.
There doesn't really have to be any rhyme or reason to this,
but the more organized you make it,
the cooler looking your bread is going to turn out.
You also want to make sure that it's roughly
an even thickness so that it rises and bakes evenly.
Grease up some plastic wrap with non-stick spray,
cover loosely and let rise at room temperature
for about 45 minutes, again, not until doubled in size
but until it grows by about 50%.
Again, we're baking for 25 to 30 minutes
at 350 degrees Fahrenheit until the thickest point
of the loaf registers 200 degrees Fahrenheit
and it is deeply golden brown.
Now, if you haven't used it on your cereal
or in your coffee, you should have
some leftover garlic herb butter
which we're going to brush down the loaf with.
So it gets a beautiful sheen,
has some nice, fresh herb-y taste.
And so it gives the loaf's exterior a sticky surface
upon which we can adhere some flaky finishing salt,
adding extra crunch and flavor
to every already delicious bite.
Let this guy cool for 10 minutes in the pan,
turn them out and serve them up
while still nice and warm.
Monkey bread is amazing for about 10 minutes,
really good for about another hour and then still good
but a shadow of its former self after that.
But when it's fresh, oh man
it's outrageous - Oh good!
there really is no other word for it.
It is outrageous.
But enough with the savory,
what if you're in the mood for something sweet?
Same dough as before, 50 gram balls
and you can bake this in whatever you want.
I'm headed into a well lubed tube pan
that I'm also sprinkling with sugar
which should give our bread a nice crusty, crunchy exterior.
Then these guys are getting rolled
in melted and cooled butter, then in a mixture
of 200 grams brown sugar, 120 grams white sugar
and about two tablespoons of cinnamon.
Rinse and repeat with the remaining balls.
Once again, trying to make sure that they form
a relatively even layer around the bottom of the pan.
Cover with plastic wrap, let rise for 45 minutes.
And I accidentally left B cam running,
so we get this really cool time-lapse.
I should definitely start doing that more often.
Let it rise by about 50%, same 350 degree Fahrenheit oven.
This one might take a little bit longer
because it's so big and bad.
And once it's cooled for 10 minutes in the pan
go ahead and turn it out onto a serving plate
and marvel at its beautiful,
sugary, crusty, symmetrical asymmetry
and try to do your best to not eat the whole thing yourself
before serving to your guests.
With all these carbs and sugar, it's less of a party starter
and more of a party finisher.
Over on the party starter side of things,
we've got today's sponsor, Bright Cellars.
A service that selects wine just for you
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making it a perfect pairing, so to speak,
for today's episode.
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To get 50% off your first six bottle box,
plus a bonus bottle, click the link in the video description
to take the taste palette quiz and get started.
(upbeat music)