Wednesday, May 6, 2015

dairy free monkey bread - attempt #1

Monkey bread has been on my baking list forever. It's also one of my friend Jessie's favorite desserts, which she's reminded me on several occasions (Hmm, intentionally? Unintentionally? Doesn't matter!). After making fluffy star bread with coconut oil instead of butter, I felt more confident that I could substitute coconut oil for butter in bread recipes and get fragrant and delicious results. I also got to try out this awesome dairy-free caramel sauce recipe, which I'm kind in love with.
Dough balls soaking in coconut caramel sauce, prior to baking. Nomnom.
When I heard about Joanne Chang's new book, Baking with Less Sugar, and her monkey bread recipe, I had to try it. Joanne Chang is the founder of the Flour Bakery + Cafe, which has 3 locations around Boston. I own both of her cookbooks Flour and Flour, too, and every recipe I've tried so far has been great. She's also one of my heroes because of her inspiring story - she graduated from Harvard with a degree in Math, but departed from a career in finance to pursue her culinary passions. I respect that!

Fresh out of the oven, after sprinkling on some coconut. Time for nomz.
Two episodes of The Following later...
...All gone.
The monkey bread turned out soft, sweet and coconutty. Every time I stood close and got a whiff of the scent, I could barely resist sneaking another piece. One of the best parts about monkey bread is how sharable it is, so if you have a good chunk of time one day to make this, it makes a great Netflix night snack to enjoy with friends. Probably helps explain why this disappeared so fast :)

monkey bread
dough (adapted from Baking with Less Sugar by Joanne Chang, as seen here)
3/4 cup coconut milk, warmed
1/2 tsp active dry yeast
1/2 tsp white granulated sugar
2 ~1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
3 Tbs coconut oil, softened
1 egg yolk
Optional: sweetened coconut flakes

cinnamon caramel sauce 
1 recipe coconut-based caramel sauce (click for recipe)
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

to prepare the dough
1. In a bowl, combine the yeast and warm coconut milk and sugar. Let sit for at least 5 minutes.
2. In a separate bowl, combine the flour and salt.
3. Combine the yeast and flour mixture, and begin mixing into a dough.
4. When the dough is partially formed and the texture is still "rough", add in the egg yolk and softened coconut oil. You might feel small coconut oil bits through the dough, but this is okay.
5. Knead until relatively smooth. Place the dough in a greased bowl in warm/dry place, and let it rise for 2 hours or until doubled in size.
to prepare the caramel sauce 
While you wait for the dough to rise, you can prepare the caramel sauce. The recipe for dairy-free, coconut-based caramel sauce.can be found here.
to assemble the monkey bread
1. After the dough has finished rising, Cut it into 48 small, similarly-sized pieces.
2. Roll each piece first in egg white and then in a cinnamon-sugar mixture. Pile them one-by-one in a greased pan.
3. After you've finished step 2, let it rise in warm/dry place for another 30 minutes.
4. Pour the caramel sauce over the top, making sure you cover all the crevices.
5. Bake at 350 F for 30-35 minutes. Sprinkle coconut flakes over it, if you'd like to add some texture and flavor.

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