Orange Glazed Monkey Bread

Yesterday I went to a friend's place for an Easter brunch get together.After this particular monkey bread was a hit last year, I decided to make it again. You know, stick to the tried and true. And because I didn't have internet at home to try to look up something else. Yeah, I need to get that no internet at home thing remedied. But, back to the matter at hand! I know you can make this with some Bisquick and it would take less time, but read on to see the homemade version, that results in this:

Oh yeah, just try to resist that.

Orange Glazed Monkey Bread

1 pkg (1/4 oz) active dry yeast
¼ cup warm water (100-110° F)
¼ cup sugar, divided
3 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp salt
1 cup warm milk (100-110° F)
2 Tbsp butter, melted and cooled
Cooking spray

Brown sugar mixture
1 cup light brown sugar
2 tsp cinnamon
6 Tbsp butter, melted, cooled and divided

Glaze
1 cup confectioner’s (powdered) sugar
1 Tbsp milk
¼ tsp orange extract

Mix yeast, warm water and 1 Tbsp sugar together in a bowl. Let stand for 5 minutes until bubbly. Add flour, salt and remaining sugar to the bowl. Either attach a dough hook to a mixer and mix on low, or mix by hand. Mix the milk and 2 Tbsp melted butter together, then add to the bowl. Let dough knead for 5 or 6 minutes (or knead by hand); scrape dough into a greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap and let rise for 1 hour.

Spray a fluted ring pan (bundt) with cooking spray. Mix brown sugar and cinnamon and place on a plate. Deflate dough, which will be very sticky, and pinch off tablespoon-sized pieces, roll between palms, dip in melted butter, roll in brown sugar mixture, and place evenly around ring pan. The pan should be 1/3 filled with dough when finished. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise overnight in the refrigerator.

In the morning, remove dough from the refrigerator. Preheat oven to 350° F. Bake bread for 30 to 35 minutes; if the top gets too dark, cover with foil. Let bread sit for 5 minutes before turning out onto serving plate. Stir together the confectioner’s sugar, milk and orange extract; pour evenly over bread.

This is after the yeast/water/sugar, which I didn't take a photo of because it wasn't really aggressively bubbly. Anyway, here all the flour, remaining sugar, and salt have been added. I believe I said to myself, huh, this doesn't look right. Then I remembered...

Of course it didn't look right yet! Because I still had to add the milk and the butter! Derrrr. I don't have a dough hook thingamajig, so I just used my hands. And BOY was it sticky. Super super sticky. I probably lost a couple tablespoons of dough to my hands.

After you let the dough rise for an hour, it's ready to be dipped in the above - butter first, then the brown sugar/cinnamon mix. As you can see, I didn't put the mix on a plate, just used the bowl. It's fine.

As this step was also super messy, you just get a photo of the finished product in the Bundt pan. Cover this baby up and put it in the fridge overnight. Let the yeast do its thing.

And in the morning, bake it up! Let it sit for a bit to congeal together.

Plop it out onto a plate. Pretend that a little bit didn't fall off and stick it back on.

Now, you can stop here and it would be perfectly fine. But if you want to get fancy and give it that little extra something, and you know you do, then...

Whip up some glaze! The orange extract gives it a little oomph.

Drizzle drizzle drizzle.

Mmmm... 

I would like to stress that you do not want to overbake this. I baked it for the minimum suggested time of 30 minutes, and I don't know if last year I baked it longer or if my oven was the culprit, but last year? It was not so soft and fluffy on the inside. It got a little dry. But this year, it was nice and moist. And now I have some leftovers to nibble on after the aforementioned brunch crowd ate about 2/3 of it. Good on its own, even better when given a little zap in the microwave.