Cream Cheese Filled Caramel-Nut Pull Apart Bread (Freezeable!)

It's Tuesday. Yes, I know. It's evil. Don't blame me, it was Auntie Em's idea to stuff the caramel nut pull apart monkey bread with a wicked cream cheese filling. With Easter coming and all the cream filled eggs out there, why not add cream filled sticky buns to the list of things to make. Why?! OH Auntie Em, what are you thinking?! Pure genius! Yes...she is in fact my evil twin sister. Well, we are a year apart in age, but that didn't stop the folks from calling us the "sunshine twins" back in grade school. Recently Em wrote me asking my advice on not only making this dessert...but making it freezable. The kind of freezable that would be able to bake the day of her family event (with the mother in law coming) and still get a good review. What do you think? Does it look like it worked? Pictures today are brought to you by the letter "E". Em, Eats, Evil. Triple threat. However, if you string the "E's" together, it looks more like a gleeful expression of utter bliss, "EEEEEEeeeeee".


Kick off you shoes and run though a meadow of wild flowers. It's time for the step by step instructions. Special thanks to Auntie Em! Smooooches!!

Auntie Em's Caramel Nut Pull Apart Bread, Cream Filled and freezable EVil Genius

Dough:

1/4 c warm water

1 T active dry yeast

4-1/4 to 4-1/2 c all-purpose flour

1/3 c sugar

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 c milk

1/3 c butter, cut in chunks

1 egg

Caramel Topping:

1 c brown sugar

1/2 c chopped pecans

1/3 c Corn Syrup

1/4 c butter, melted

Cream Filling:

1 package (8 oz) cream cheese, softened

1/2 c shredded coconut (okay...how evil is that?!)

1/4 c powdered sugar

2 T butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla

Combine water and yeast in a small bowl; set aside.

Combine 2 c flour, sugar and salt in large mixer bowl. Heat milk and butter until warm (100° to 110°F) - butter does not need to melt.

Add milk mixture, yeast mixture and egg to dry ingredients. Beat 30 seconds on low speed to blend; beat an additional 2 minutes on medium speed. Stir in enough remaining flour to make a soft dough. Knead on lightly floured surface until smooth and elastic, about 8 to 10 minutes.

Place in a greased bowl, turning once to coat.Cover and let rise in a warm, draft-free place until nearly doubled, about 1 to 1-1/2 hours. (Note: this rich dough rises slowly, and probably will not double).

Combine all caramel topping ingredients together.
Grease two 9-inch round cake pans. Spread half the topping in the bottom of each pan.
Combine all cream filling ingredients and beat until well mixed; set aside. Punch dough down and divide into 20 equal pieces. Cover and let rest 10 minutes.
Flatten each piece of dough into a small circle, about 4 to 5 inches in diameter.
Place a scant T of cream filling in the center.

It looks like a little cheese tortellini.

Pinch edges of dough together and form into a ball; place in prepared pans, pinched side down, 10 rolls per pan. Cover and let rise until doubled, about 30 to 45 minutes.

Yes, let them raise before freezing! That is the secret!.(if freezing, put in freezer at this point. To prepare pull from freezer straight to the oven and add 20 min to bake time for room temp dough) Bake at 350°F for 25 to 30 minutes or until deep golden brown (45-50 minutes from frozen). Cool on rack for only 1 minute; invert onto serving platters.

Remember, allow to cool only one minute before inverting onto a platter. Be careful, it's hot and that goo is delicious...but not in a molten mass attached to your arm.

Oh my stars!

There you go! Thank Auntie Em for those extra pounds. Not me. I have to go jogging just thinking about this stuff. Thanks a lot! Smooches anyway sista'. You know I love you!

Coconut Banana Monkey bread

Little Man got his Bear at our pack meeting last week. It took us a while to finally get the award but now we're onward and upward with Webelos. October was a Jungle theme, so it was only fitting to make some monkey bread for the pack meeting refreshments. This is my own personal recipe. It includes coconut and bananas with the gooey break apart bread in a Carmel like vanilla sauce. I think it was really crazy wicked decent. Some of the Cub Scouts where a little disappointed that I didn't use real monkey in the bread. What the heck is the matter with me? What was I thinking not boiling up some cute little chimpanzee to make the bread?

Dough,

You will need:

2T active dry yeast

3/4 cup warm water (110 degrees)

1/4 cup melted butter

1/2 cup coconut milk

2 eggs, lightly beaten

1/4 cup sugar

2 tsp coconut extract

1 tsp rum extract

2 tsp salt

1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

3 cups bread flour

Sauce:

1 cup brown sugar

2 T cinnamon

3/4 cup melted butter

1 small package "cook and serve" vanilla or butterscotch pudding mix

1 tsp double strength vanilla

Fruit:

1 banana, chopped

1/2 cup macadamia nuts

1 cup coconut flakes

1/2 cup dried pineapple or mango

For the dough, in a large mixing bowl dissolve the yeast in warm water with the 1/4 cup sugar. Add coconut milk, eggs, melted butter, extracts, whole wheat flour and salt. Mix about 3 minutes. Add remaining flour 1 cup at a time until supple dough forms. You may need less than the recipe calls for depending on the storage conditions of your flour. Add until dough pulls away from the side of the bowl and forms a ball. Knead with the dough hook in mixer 5 minutes medium speed. Remove dough from mixer and form into a ball. Place ball in a large, lightly greased bowl and cover. Allow to raise until double, about 1 hour and 30 minutes. While dough rises, make the Carmel vanilla sauce.

Once the dough doubles in size, punch down. Remove from bowl. Totally random sized balls of dough need to be formed. This is a great one to make with kids.

To make the sauce:

Melt the butter in a microwave safe dish. Add all the remaining ingredients and stir well.

Don't you just want to drink this stuff?

Now I poured half of the sauce in a large 14 inch skillet with deep sides. It just makes a good surface area for coating the dough chunks. Roll the chunks around in the sauce.

I also added the banana, nuts, dried fruit and coconut...

In various layers...

Just in case it didn't seem evil enough, go ahead and coat the top chunks with sauce, so everyone gets good and gooey. Like mud wrestling...but with dough that you eat.

Dough wrestling hurts my brain.

I love coconut. I do...so I coated the top with more coconut.

Now here's where I get weird. Tee hee. I know I've said it before, but really I'm a bit crazy. I take the entire contents of the skillet and dump it into a well oil large stoneware casserole dish. I've had mine 10 years. It's been since discontinued by the Pampered Chef so I can't even tell anyone where to get one. Just use a large casserole pan (at least 12 inches by 18 inches) Or 3- 9inch by 5 inch loaf pans, buttered well so the stuff doesn't stick. Allow dough to raise 45 minutes to an hour. Key here is to allow the dough to get really, really, really fluffy. Bake in preheated oven 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes (check internal temperature with a meat thermometer...170 degrees and it is cooked through).

Now, make sure you have a foil lined pan or serving tray that will fit over the entire pan. This time I happened to use a nice cookie sheet covered with foil. Choose your audience. Mine happened to be going to a Cub Scout function with zany boys. They don't care one way or another if the monkey bread is on a fancy tray. If you make this for Great Aunt Bertha's funeral dinner...maybe need a nice tray. Just be sure it can take the heat of a warm wad of Carmel and dough and that it has a 1 inch lip to help catch the extra Carmel sauce. Put the tray serving side down, facing the bread and firmly grip the pan and tray. Turn the bread over quickly so it doesn't drip all over.

The only down side of making monkey bread is cleaning up the pan. I did refrain from just putting my sweet little red head right into that pan and licking the carmel-eeee goodness off with my tongue. Be ever so impressed. Did I mention we have a dog named Karmel? Hmmm. Okay. I'm random. All that aside, let's not lose track of the fact that monkey bread is really one of life's finer treats.

No monkeys where harmed in the making of this post.

There you go.