Christine and the Big Scary Kitchen

I love snow days.  There’s nothing I enjoy more than an excuse to watch bad movies on TBS, lounge around in pajamas, and sleep in.  If friends are over for me to feed, I’m even happier!

I knew the snow was coming this weekend.  People talked about how excited they were for thick blankets of white to cover the streets and buildings.  Philadelphia had a bigger snow earlier this season, so I wasn’t expecting much.  On Friday, after walking around for a few blocks it was clear even without the inconvenience of snow, being out on Saturday would be miserable.  I barely survived the Farmer’s Market while grabbing my meat for the week.

Philadelphia is much colder than Colorado Springs.  Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

With the temperature dropping, Ed, Jay, and I decided to have a WolfDen sleepover complete with morning brunch.  Since Alyssa, Jo Anna and I were cooking a full dinner with girly wine and sake flowing the night before, I grabbed the easiest recipe to make ahead of time- a no-knead bread – and made it into monkey bread.  I have a documented weakness for monkey bread.

This recipe makes a lot.  I would say it could easily make three 8 inch cake pans full.  We had five people and barely went through one pan.  (I may have eaten half of our second pan over the course of the day.)  The good news is you can let the rest hang out in the fridge for the week and make dinner rolls or more monkey bread for dessert.  I’m going to try some brioche… Get creative!

*Aside from the argyle socks picture, the rest of the pictures were taken by the lovely Jo Anna Van Thuyne, Ed’s girlfriend.  She did a great job capturing the action as it happened.*

No-Knead Monkey Bread
(adapted from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day posted on Steamy Kitchen.)

Dough (made at least the night before):

1 3/4 cups lukewarm water
1 1/2 tbl instant yeast (a package of yeast is fine)
1 1/2 tbl kosher salt (or 1 1/2 tsp table salt)
4 lg eggs, slightly beaten
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
7 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

Cinnamon-Sugar for Rolling
1 cup sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

Topping:
1 stick of butter
1/4 cup of brown sugar

1.  Combine all ingredients and stir until very well blended (no flour bits!)
2.  Cover loosely and stick in the fridge at least overnight, but up to four days!

Day of Baking:

(You can also make these in muffin tins to make individual portions.  About three to four pieces in a muffin cup are good)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Remove the dough from the fridge.  Make the cinnamon-sugar and grab a shallow bowl with some water.

Pull off a chunk of dough about the size of a chestnut from the “mothership” of dough and roll in hands— the more you roll, the “nicer” they will look, but keep in mind lack of perfection really gives it some character.  Dip the dough ball in water.  Roll in cinnamon-sugar.  Place in lightly oiled cake pan.

Repeat until the cake pan is full.  As you can see from the pictures below, they rise while baking.  Mine, on the left, had cracks between the dough balls before the rise&bake.  Alyssa’s, on the right, was packed tightly.  It’s really a preference thing, though the caramel topping got in the nooks and crannies of mine a little better.

Let rest for about twenty-thirty minutes depending on how warm the dough is.

Once the dough has most of its chill off/room temperature, start the topping.  Melt the butter.  Add brown sugar, whisk until mixture is smooth.  Don’t touch the hot sugar.  It’s tempting… don’t.  Pour over the dough.

Put the pans in the oven and bake for 35-40 minutes.  I would suggest putting tin foil on the rack below the monkey bread as the topping may boil over which isn’t a great surprise the next time you turn on your dirty oven.  (May know from personal experience.)

Serve by putting a plate over the bread then flipping over.  The cake pan should slide very easily.