Cream Cheese-Stuffed Monkey Bread

About the recipe

We’ve updated the traditional monkey bread by stuffing the center with cream cheese. The addition of cream to the caramel sauce gives it a toffee-like richness. We tried this recipe with both homemade and canned biscuit dough, and found that the canned biscuit dough yielded a more successful result. Look for biscuit dough that is not labled “flaky.”

Serves: 8

Hands On Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour and 15 minutes

Ingredients

1/2 cup granulated sugar

2 tablespoons ground cinnamon

8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter

1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

3/4 cup heavy cream

2 (10-count) cans buttermilk biscuit dough

8 ounces cream cheese, cubed

1 cup chopped pecan pieces

Instructions

Heat the oven to 350 degrees.

In a small bowl, mix together the granulated sugar and cinnamon.

In a medium saucepan or cast iron skillet, melt the butter over medium heat. Add the brown sugar and salt, and cook until the sugar has begun to dissolve. Whisk in the the heavy cream, bring to a low simmer, and cook, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened, about 10 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Open the biscuit dough and press each biscuit into a flattened disk. Sprinkle some of the cinnamon sugar on top, then place a cube of cream cheese in the center. Form the dough into a golf ball-sized ball, then repeat with the remaining biscuits.

Scatter one-third of the pecans in the bottom of a non-stick bundt pan. Line half of the stuffed dough balls along the bottom, then sprinkle with more cinnamon sugar. Pour half of the caramel over the top of the dough balls and top with another 1/3 of the pecans. Top with the remaining dough balls, then sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Pour the remaining caramel over the top, then finish with the remaining pecans.

Bake until the biscuits have risen and are cooked through, about 45 minutes. Let cool for 10 minutes. Turn the bundt pan upside down onto a plate, and serve warm.