Overnight Sourdough Monkey Bread

The BEST monkey bread, made with sourdough. This is a really easy dough to make (you can do it all by hand!), and the result is so soft.

I like to start the dough in the afternoon, let it rise until the evening, shape it and roll it in the cinnamon sugar, then let it do the second rise overnight. In the morning, I make the caramel sauce and bake it.

Ah, monkey bread. The star of holiday mornings and sleepovers alike.

It's doughy and gooey, with lots of cinnamon flavor and all doused in a caramel sauce. Plus, it is fun to pick apart and munch on. (Apparently this is why it's called monkey bread - because you eat it like a monkey. Who knew??)

My strongly held belief is that sweet baked goods are made even better by making them with sourdough. The deep flavor of a slow rise and the slight sour tang makes the sweetness more enjoyable while keeping it from being overpowering. Like in these cinnamon rolls, or these chocolate chip cookies, or these hot cross buns. Sublime!

The dough

Again, this dough is really easy to make! It's stiff, meaning you can easily knead it by hand (no mixer required!).

Start by melting butter in a skillet or small saucepan, then add milk and heat it over low just until any butter solids that formed after the milk was added melt again. You want it to feel like bath water.

Then add the warm milk mixture to a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer and mix together with the starter and sugar. Once combined, add the flour and salt and mix until no dry flour remains. If you're mixing by hand, you will probably need to use your hands for the mixing!

Knead the dough for 5-8 minutes either by hand or on LOW speed in your stand mixer. Shape the dough in a ball, place in a bowl, cover, and let rise for 6-8 hours. You want it to puff up significantly here, but it doesn't have to exactly double.

Like a lot of sourdough recipes, this dough does two rises. Instead of having a longer bulk ferment and a shorter second rise, I find the timing for this works best to do a shorter bulk ferment and a longer second rise. That way, the second rise can happen while you're sleeping and you can wake up and get monkey bread baking.

All this to say, there is a lot of flexibility in rise time here. If your first rise was shorter, your second rise can be longer. If your first rise was longer, your second rise can be slightly shorter.

Shaping monkey bread

Of course, you will want a standard 10-inch (12-cup capacity) bundt pan for a classic monkey bread. It looks so fancy but is so easy! Whether you have a metal or silicone pan, I'd recommend greasing it to prevent any sticking.

This is one of my favorite breads to shape - I think it's so fun!

After the first rise, turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Roll to ¾-inch thickness. Cut into 1-inch squares. Take a handful of squares at a time and toss them in the cinnamon sugar. You don't have to shape the dough pieces into rolls, but you can squish them into the cinnamon sugar to make them less uniform.

Grab the dough pieces out of the cinnamon sugar and place into the prepared bundt pan. Try to include a little extra cinnamon sugar with each transfer - you'll use it all anyway! Repeat until all the dough has been used. Sprinkle the excess cinnamon sugar over the dough.

Then, cover the pan, go to bed, and let it rise.

Important note: In the winter, I do both rises in the oven with the light on. Since I'm working on a stricter timeline with this (AKA, we want monkey bread ASAP in the morning!), I like the predictability the oven gives me.

The caramel sauce

This is what makes me love monkey bread. The caramel sauce! It's so easy to make and you can have it done before your oven is preheated.

You'll melt together a stick of butter with a cup of brown sugar and bring it to a boil. Then remove it from the heat, stir in the vanilla, and pour over the dough.

It will sink down while the bread bakes so when you turn the dough out it will all be coated and soft and delicious.

Baking monkey bread

Highly recommend you place your bundt pan on a baking sheet during baking just in case there's any spillage. I've never had this problem with this recipe, but I'd much rather clean off a baking sheet than an oven's interior!

About halfway through baking, you'll want to tent the bundt pan with foil, otherwise the pieces on the top (which will become the bottom) will get too brown and crispy. Which is not what monkey bread is all about.

I also recommend using a digital thermometer to temp your monkey bread. It can be hard to tell when it's done just judging by the top of the bread. You're looking for 190 degrees Fahrenheit here!

Probably the hardest part of this recipe is letting it sit for 5-10 minutes after coming out of the oven. This lets it set up a little bit so the sauce isn't too liquidy when you go to turn it out.

Once you've tested your patience to the max, invert the pan onto whatever kind of plate/platter/cake stand you're using. It may take a few seconds for the bread to drop out of the pan - don't rush it!

Then, dig in. Seriously, don't wait one second longer. There is nothing like warm, gooey, fresh-from-the-oven monkey bread!

A sample timetable

The best thing about this bread (other than how amazing it is to eat) is how EASY it is to have ready for a special breakfast!

Here's what my schedule usually looks like:

3 PM - start the dough.
11 PM - shape the dough. Let it do a second rise while I sleep.
7:30 AM - preheat the oven, make the caramel sauce + bake.
8:30 AM - eat monkey bread!

You can obviously shift that schedule forward or backward or slightly increase or decrease rise times as needed. And if plans change and you need to hit the pause button on monkey bread, just pop it in the fridge until you're ready (within a day or so). It's so flexible!