Hi guys, I'm Laura Vitale, on this episode of Laura in the Kitchen, I'm so excited because
I love Monkey Bread, love Monkey Bread!
But I also love lemons, so we are making a lemon monkey bread.
I've been seeing a variation of this recipe all over and I thought that's a brilliant
idea and let me tell you, it is dynamite.
It is dynamite.
This is just a play on my classic monkey bread recipe that I've been making for years and
years, it used to be something that we ate so often, but then we stopped for obvious
reasons.
I'm sure they're all over the place, but at the Jersey shore, there are monkey bread stands
on the boardwalk, so good!
Let me run you through the ingredients because it's so short and sweet, you'll need some
biscuits, homemade or store bought, these are store bought and there's no shame in my
game because it is easy, you'll need some sugar, lots of lemons I have an extra one
here for whatever reason, some butter, and some vanilla extract, you'll also need a little
bit of powdered sugar because I'm going to mix the powdered sugar with the lemon juice
to create a little bit of a glaze.
So good, just you wait.
The oven is preheated to 350, I've got a bunt pan, this is a 12 cup capacity bunt pan that's
been sprayed with just a little bit of non-stick spray.
And now we're going to get going, rocking and rolling.
I'm going to take the zest of three lemons, you can do two, but you know me I like my
lemons, I'm going to do three.
Three lemons, I'm going to zest them right into the bowl of sugar, so just patiently
make sure you take all of the yellow, just the yellow and make sure that you buy un-waxed
lemons because if you're using this much zest, you want to use just the purest lemon zest
you can get.
So go ahead and get that all off, just the yellow, not the white because the white is
really bitter.
Then you just take a spoon, just kind of get that lemon incorporated into the sugar.
I ended up doing the zest of all four lemons, because like I said, I love me some lemons.
Okay, this is good enough, it's all going to blend as it bakes, did I tell you I have
the oven preheated to 350?
That's an important note.
You take your biscuits, you're going to cut each biscuit into quarters, right?
This is so easy, it's unreal.
Each biscuit, cut it into quarters, you dip it in the sugar, and you dunk it in.
There's no rhyme or reason, there's no specific way to do this.
You literally just do this until you're all done.
And then you'll sprinkle any remaining sugar around them.
Whatever sugar you've got leftover, sprinkle that right on top.
Now we take our melted butter with a little bit of vanilla, you add the vanilla right
in just so that it makes it easier to distribute.
Give me that little spoon.
And then you just take this baby and you just slowly drizzle it in the whole thing and I'm
telling you this is the stuff of absolute dreams.
Now you see why we don't make our regular monkey bread very often.
Although I like to, it's probably better that I don't.
This is a great lighter brighter version.
Uh, serve it with some fruit on the side so you don't feel so bad.
And then you're fine.
In the oven, 350F half an hour, and I will show you what it looks like when it comes
out, it's going to be so good.
Alright, so the monkey bread was in the oven for actually 35 minutes, I took it out, I
let it rest in it's tin for 10 minutes, after ten minutes, you want to invert it onto a
platter, you don't want to wait any longer than the very maximum of fifteen minutes,
because then it starts to harden in the tin and it gets harder for it to come out, so
just wait ten minutes, invert it, let it finish cooling off, this is ready.
Still slightly warm which is how I like it but now we're going to make a really easy
lemon glaze for the top because believe it or not, even though we're going to be using
sugar, the fresh lemon juice adds a lot of tartness, so it's going to balance all of
the sweetness really well, and all you need for that is powdered sugar and the juice of
some lemon, you may need half a lemon, you may need a whole lemon, I'm going to start
with a half of a lemon.
And give that a stir.
Definitely need a whole lemon, I think, maybe not, it all depends.
Some lemons are juicier than others, I just want a little bit more, because I don't want
this to be super thick, this is a light glaze, it's not a frosting.
And like I said, you get all of the essential oils from the lemon zest which we use in there
with the sugar, but you get the brightness from the actual lemon juice.
So this is perfect and you don't need very much of it because we don't need any extra
sweetness, you know what I'm saying.
And I'm pretty sweet myself.
There's a lot of sweetness going on over here.
You know?
This is the consistency you're looking for.
See that?
Gorgeous.
This with some fresh berries when you serve it just for something tart and fresh, it really
is such a wonderful treat.
You're not going to make it often, so make sure you make it very very worth it when you
do.
Fabulous, fabulous.
Save the rest for later, I'm going to go for this piece right here.
I have been eyeing it up, you can see it just kind of pulls right apart.
Oh my word.
Knock you off your feet!
Man that's good.
Too good.
It's buttery, sweet, and tangy.
That is perfect.
Mic drop.
Mmm.
Oh my goodness, I'm going to stay away from that, because I'm going to have dinner first.
Mmm!
LauraintheKitchen.com, get the recipe, make it this weekend, you will love it, share a
photo with me on Instagram, I'll see you next time.
Bye.